


Ginger Snaps: Reunion

by Blisterdude



Category: Ginger Snaps (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brigitte is a BAMF, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Ginger is helpful, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Incest, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Incest, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-01 19:19:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8634823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blisterdude/pseuds/Blisterdude
Summary: Set Post-Unleashed. Brigitte faces the prospect that she hasn't hit the end of the road as soon as she thought. More than that, she finds she isn't facing it entirely alone.    Is it a second chance, or is it just a waiting game? Can Brigitte find something to live for in a world where her best-case scenario is hair everywhere but her eyeballs, elongation of her spine until her skin splits, teats, and a growing tolerance, maybe even affection for, the smell and taste of feces - not just her own - and then, excruciating death?Authors Note: For those confused, after weeks of indecision, my OCD finally won out and I combined all ten parts of Reunion into one chapter-based upload. Should make it easier, simpler and tidier for everyone. Possibly I should have done that from the beginning, but hey, hindsight.





	1. Voices In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I'm late to the party, I know, but I first saw Ginger Snaps about a week ago, and then binged the entire trilogy. I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I really enjoyed it, but there were certainly a few areas where I felt like I would have liked some closure. This is my little attempt to do that.
> 
> As a warning, I have played fast and loose with the lore and canon a little, perhaps, maybe taken some liberties. Some big, some small. But I felt like there was just about enough room to maneuver, within the film's rules to get away with what I've done to flesh out the story a bit. I even tried to squeeze in a reference to Ginger Snaps Back, which in the movies is pretty much entirely unconnected, but there we go. I tried.
> 
> This isn't particularly action-packed...at all. It's mostly just, as I said, a bit of closure for these two characters who I have come to love quite a bit, since things definitely didn't go their way. Especially poor Brigitte, who suffers mightily in these movies, and I find to be one of the more admirable, strong, well-written characters I've ever encountered.
> 
> There is a teensy-weensy bit of beyond-sibling subtext in here, but feel free to ignore that if you choose, or read into it what you will. That said, please enjoy my meager efforts to give the Fitzgeralds an epilogue of sorts.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody was more surprised than Brigitte, when she realised it was Brigitte who woke up in that dark cellar, and not something else. That is, until she realised someone else was in there with her. 
> 
> "First time is always the hardest, B."

The first thing Brigitte felt was pain.

The second was a kind of relief, as she realised the pain was hers, and it was she herself that could feel it.

Brigitte. The idea swam around in her muddled, pounding skull. Brigitte. Brigitte. Brigitte Fitzgerald. Brigitte.

She tried to move, and instantly regretted it. Pain. And…confusion.

Arms, legs, skin, bones, none that felt quite right. Like they weren't really all hers. But…

She flexed a hand, tentatively. Fingers, thumb. Same with the other. Hands. Hers. But it felt…off. Like a part of her was trying to reassert itself, and another part thought it was something else.

This wasn't right. She'd been changing. So close. She had changed, she was sure of it. She…she remembered. Remember…remember…

Brigitte fought to think through the blank spaces in her memory, the…walls, the impenetrable fog, but…

She had changed. But she was…she was back. She was Brigitte. The wolf was…gone?

The pinpricks of feeling began to return to her limbs. She could feel things. The floor was rough, damp, chill to the touch. She could feel it everywhere… feel it, feel it, feel it…

Oh god, she was naked.

And then she heard it. Barely there, at the edge of her muddled perceptions. Breathing. Not hers though.

A thought broke through the surface of her flailing, jumbled memories. The other wolf. Locked in the cellar. She was locked in. Not alone. Not alone.

Brigitte tensed all over, fumbling for purchase with her clumsy hands, still not quite hers. Like the rest of her body. Felt wrong. Not right.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she forced her eyes open only to be met by thick, oily black. Everywhere, all around. Dark. Everywhere. Dark.

And it was still out there. In here. With her. Couldn't see. Couldn't see.

She struggled up onto her knees, wobbling as she did, her head spinning, brain felt like it was sloshing about in her skull. She felt sick, going to be sick.

Her heart was pounding, and her breathing was quickening. She had to calm down. Calm down. Calm. Calm.

"First time is always the hardest, B." Out of the gloom.

That voice, not that voice. Couldn't be. Impossible.

"No." She rasped out, throat dry, hoarse. Scratchy. Sore.

Couldn't be. Wouldn't be. Couldn't handle that now. Not now.

"You all there, yet?"

"Not now." Brigitte grumbled, through gritted teeth. "Not now." She clutched her head with one hand, raking shaky fingers through her sweaty, greasy, matted hair.

She could hear her. Feel someone else in the dark with her, in the cellar. But…did that mean anything? It couldn't. Her ghosts, her memories had haunted her for the past three years, what would they stop for now?

Not even losing herself to the beast could get her away.

"Not real." She grumbled, clenching her eyes shut and trying to grasp at something…anything familiar. Something to start with, work from. "You're not real. Dead, Ginger, you're dead. I killed you."

"You gave it…a good go." Ginger's voice again out of the black. Chipper, but nervous. Hesitant. "Hurt like hell, B. And again the other night. Who'd a'thought my little sister had it in her?" She chuckled.

"Shut up, not now. Can't…fuck." Brigitte clutched her head in both hands. She hurt like hell. Everywhere.

"I guess I kinda deserved it." Ginger went on, dryly. "A lot. But we're tougher than you thought, it turns out. We don't die easy. If I hadn't fully changed you probably would done it."

"Stop it. Stop talking." Brigitte growled. "Five fucking minutes, is it too much to ask? Just five minutes. No werewolves, lunatics, drugs, doctors, dead sister, nothing. Five damn minutes."

She choked out a laugh.

"I'm still talking to you. I'm talking to you and you're not there."

Then she heard the footsteps. The soft, regular slap of bare feet on the stone floor. Closer, coming closer.

"Not real." Brigitte shook her head, then regretted it. Still felt sick.

"It's me, B." The voice whispered, as a hand carefully touched her bare shoulder.

It was too much. She lurched back, lashing out with her hand, balled into a crude fist. She was more surprised than anything when her fist made contact with something.

She'd never been able to hit her hallucinations, nightmares, before. Not Ginger. She'd tried, tried plenty of times. Dark, desperate moments. To make her stop, make them go away. Fight the wolf, fight the beast.

"Ouch." Ginger managed, from across the cellar.

Brigitte vomited on the floor. She dry-heaved a couple of times, not surprised she had nothing left. Felt like she hadn't eaten for days.

"What…the fuck…are you?" Brigitte crawled backward, clumsily. Her hands grasped awkwardly for the wall and she dragged herself up against it. Her legs protested, shaking under her own weight.

"A terrible sister." The voice replied, after a moment.

"You can't…you can't do this to me. I killed you. I did, me." Brigitte spat. "I killed you and I lived with that, for three years. Three fucking years!"

"Brigitte…"

"Don't interrupt me!" Brigitte snapped. "Three years alone, without you, or anyone! I'm not the same person, I'm not who I was. I don't know any more if anything is even left of Brigitte, I don't even know why…why I'm here now at all! Why I'm not some…monster, crawling around in the dark. Maybe I am!"

"You're not the monster."

They fell quiet, the cellar was still. The only sound their breathing.

Brigitte felt like she was going to fall apart. Was this it? Was she finally losing it? Had she snapped at last? Or was…was Ginger really, actually alive, down here with her?

She was so sure she'd killed her sister. Felt the life go out of her changed body. Held it, hugged it, alone in their room, for hours. She was sure.

But what did she know? How was she supposed to know? Lycanthropy, werewolves, they weren't supposed to be real, but they were. She was. Ginger had been, was, is.

"I'm real, Brigitte." Ginger said, out of the gloom in front of her.

She hadn't moved, and seemed to be standing still. That suited Brigitte.

Brigitte leaned on the wall, obstinately refusing to do what all her body wanted to do and crumple up in a heap.

"Why…why the hell…" Brigitte started, not sure how to even finish the question. She had so many, wanted them all answered at once. Where did you start?

"Why what?" Ginger asked.

"Everything." Brigitte spat, angrily. God, she wanted to throw up again.

Ginger didn't reply for a minute.

"Can we…talk?"

"Isn't that what we're doing. Never stopped, for me. You weren't there, but you were. Always goading, always pushing, pulling, whenever things got…really bad. When I thought that maybe then, that was the time, give in, let the wolf win." Brigitte rambled, glancing around furtively.

Her eyes were almost…adjusting to the dark. Couldn't see shit, but the black was less…solid. She could make out blurry shapes, vague outlines. Walls, the stairs, and a thin block that might….might have been Ginger.

"I'm not the same either, B." Ginger replied, sounding a little sad.

Brigitte choked out a bitter laugh, then retched again.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine." She managed weakly, when she was sure she had her stomach back under control. "Alright, Ginger, what do you want to talk about, since it doesn't seem like I'm going anywhere now."

"Us."

"What 'us'?" Brigitte argued, bitterly.

"Probably deserve that too."

Brigitte didn't answer. She sighed, closing her eyes and tried to order her thoughts. She had to be realistic. There were things she didn't know, that she needed to know.

"Why am I…we…us again?" She asked.

"Full moon, Brigitte. For three days you're covered in hair, crawling on all fours and looking for something to chow down on, then it starts all over again."

"Oh god." Brigitte swallowed, her gut churning.

Full moon, every twenty-eight days or so…oh fucking hell, this couldn't be real…

"I know." Ginger went on, sounding equally bitter. "Makes you kinda yearn for the old days where all we were shittin' about was PMS."

"But…but…" Brigitte struggled to make sense of it.

She'd been sure it was the end. The beast won, and Brigitte disappeared forever. Like Ginger.

…but she'd killed…thought she'd killed Ginger. And she hadn't seen, hadn't waited around to find out what happened afterward. She'd run away. She'd spent three years fighting it, three years of pain, poisoning herself with doses of monkshood to stave off the change, put off the beast taking over.

She'd been so wrapped up in studying what it was doing to her body, how it was changing her the longer she didn't take the monkshood, she'd been blind to…well…a lot of things.

"The monkshood wasn't a cure." Brigitte said.

"No." Ginger said, sympathetically. "But it does totally fuck with the change."

"There were times, a few days each month or so, when things got really bad." Brigitte went on, half to herself. "When it felt like that was it, game over. I never even thought, never once thought to…check that…"

She clutched her head with her hand again, the dull ache growing, pounding once more.

"You fought it off for three years, B." Her sister said. "I always thought I was the strong one." She added, sadly.

"So did I." Brigitte replied.

"Was it worth it?"

"Yes."

"It's taken so much out of you." Ginger argued. "I've never seen you look so…frail."

Brigitte pounded her fist on the wall, and pushed herself off, onto her own two feet.

"I wasn't ready to just give up like you did, I wasn't going to be a killer! I wasn't going to hurt anybody!" She panted, heavily. She was tired, so fucking tired.

Brigitte took a deep breath and let loose. She explained everything that she'd been through, that had happened to her, that she'd fought and struggled with in the last three years, alone. Being locked in rehab, her painful transformation, being betrayed by Ghost…

Ginger was silent, after that. Part of Brigitte felt like she'd gone too far, another part felt she hadn't gone far enough. She still hadn't fully accepted that Ginger, her sister, was really locked down in this cellar with her, alive. Part of her couldn't accept it. Wouldn't.

A small part of her, maybe all that was left of Brigitte from before, wanted it more than anything. Even after everything that had happened, everything she'd done, still wanted so bad for it to really be Ginger, wanted so much for her sister to really be back.

"I'm sorry, Brigitte."

That had been the last thing she expected. Ginger, the Ginger she knew had never apologised for anything. Certainly her hallucinations hadn't been particularly sympathetic.

"I'm sorry about everything."

Brigitte stared, blankly into the dark, trying to fix onto the shape that was all she could see of Ginger.

Still standing there, not moving.

Brigitte sniffed. She felt something run down her cheek.

Oh fuck this, was she crying now? She rubbed her eyes roughly with her arm.

"You killed all those people." She muttered.

"I know." Ginger replied, haltingly. "It…takes control, but…but I…got to watch. Every time."

Brigitte felt a pang of regret, sympathy almost, buried in amidst all the anger, frustration, confusion and bile that filled her up to bursting.

"You killed Sam." She managed, through gritted teeth.

"I'm sorry, Brigitte." Her sister repeated.

"Doesn't change anything." Brigitte said.

But it had. It did. Somewhere inside.

"Did you…did you like him?" Ginger asked, hesitantly, after a pause.

"What the fuck difference does that make?" Brigitte snapped, suddenly furious. "What does it fucking matter?"

"It matters to me." Ginger argued.

"No I didn't, not like that!" Brigitte yelled back. "I was fifteen, I was all kinds of fucking messed up, didn't know what the fuck I wanted, besides you! Sam...Sam might have been a friend, that's all! That's it! And you…you couldn't even let me have that."

"B-"

Brigitte took an unsteady step forward, managing to keep her balance.

"I was so fucking screwed up, all I ever had was you, you'd made sure of that. I needed you, Ginger, and you threw me away in the space of a fucking week, and I had nobody, I had nothing! Sam was a friend, but you couldn't let me have anything of my own, couldn't let me be anything you didn't want me to be, so you put a fucking end to that!"

Brigitte took another wobbly step forward.

"You took everything from me." Brigitte laughed, bitterly. "Most of what I ever had just revolved around you anyway, and then I killed you, and you didn't even leave me with that."

Another step forward. The dark blur that was probably Ginger remained still.

"I wanted to hate you. Tried to hate you, for years. Tried so hard I saw you, dreamed you all this time, you became my demon, my monster." Brigitte ranted. "But I couldn't, I couldn't make myself really do it, I loved you, love you, because I can't fucking do anything else."

Ginger said nothing.

"Eventually, it got so bad I actually looked forward to you appearing, even though I knew you weren't real. Even though all you did was mock me, push me, taunt me, try and get me to give up and let the animal out." She remembered a few other hallucinations, imaginings. Different ones. Sexual. "Among other things. God, I'm so fucked up." She groaned.

"I wasn't a very good sister to you, B." Ginger spoke up, finally. "I thought I was, but I wasn't."

"Doesn't matter now." Brigitte looked up toward the ceiling, fancying she could just make out the barest hint of light.

"Yeah, it does." Ginger continued. "We're here, both of us. Together."

"And what, you think we can just talk this out, go back to how things were? We can't go back, I don't want to go back."

"I know."

"Then what do you want? Why have you been following me all this time?" Brigitte stepped forward again, and shoved the shape back. "Why couldn't you just let me go?"

Solid. Still there. Ginger was there. She watched the shape stand up straight again.

"I took you for granted. You were…you were mine. My little sister, my little shadow. It felt good knowing I'd always have you, with everything else starting to change. And then I got bitten and…" She paused.

"And?" Brigitte prompted.

"You probably haven't felt it like I have, the monkshood messes it up. Or…maybe you were just stronger than me." Ginger paused, like she was thinking. "It's like…sharing with something else. Your mind, your body. Something hungry, always hungry. Yearning. It wants and wants and wants and drowns you out in the noise."

"So you had nothing to do with anything? That's convenient." Brigitte frowned.

"That's not what I said." Ginger argued. "It's…you share. It feeds on…on you, your wants and desires, too. Uses them. Latches onto bits of who you were. It's why I…it…kept chasing you. I wanted to find you, but I had no idea how, or where you were, but it…it had ways of hunting and tracking you down that I didn't."

"Jesus." Brigitte managed. "You…tried to kill me sometimes, others it seemed like…like it wanted something else." She looked away, unable to look at her sister even in the dark.

She remembered some of her…dreams…again. Visions of Ginger. What she did in them, what Brigitte did too. She swallowed, guiltily.

"It's not like it asked what I wanted whenever it found you." Ginger continued. "It just…used you, the fact that more than anything, I loved you, I wanted to find you. It…wanted to find you too, but…uh…for other things."

"Oh." Brigitte blinked, trying and failing not to dwell on what that meant.

They'd always been close, but…but…

"I thought it might have…might have been Jason." Brigitte said, trying to change the subject. "Since the monkshood wasn't a cure…"

"I met him. A couple of times. Fought really, over you." Ginger replied. "I think I might have killed him, the last time but…can't be sure, y'know?" Brigitte's eyes were getting slightly better, she thought she saw Ginger shrug.

"Over me." Brigitte echoed, fully failing now to ignore the implications. Another memory bubbled up from the stewing cauldron of her mind.

"You know, we're almost not even related anymore." Brigitte murmured, half to herself, echoing Ginger's own words.

They both fell quiet for a moment, after that. An uneasy tension filled the cellar.

"I've been wrong about a lot of things." Ginger began, eventually.

"At least you're right about that." Brigitte quipped.

"And that was one of them, B." She went on. "You're my sister, and you'll always be my sister, whatever happens to us. I love you, that hasn't ever changed. It won't."

Brigitte vividly recalled a few nights where she'd…relieved tension either thinking about or being plagued by visions of her sister. It almost hadn't mattered at the time, with everything she was facing. Now though…

"I had…dreams." Ginger continued, suddenly. "Ever since that night, when I first changed. Dreams, I think, but they were more like…memories. I saw us, or…well, they looked like us. They had our names, they had our necklaces. But it was years ago."

Brigitte didn't say anything, choosing to listen.

"They…were lost, alone. All they had was each other. There was danger, violence, blood, death, and one of them, me, her, was bitten and changed. But you…she…she didn't kill her sister, even though she was supposed to, she chose to be with her instead, she gave up everything for me…her." Ginger struggled to explain, as if she'd been thinking about it a lot. "She was better than me. Braver than me. She treated her sister better than I did."

Brigitte wasn't sure what to make of it. Ginger sounded like she clearly believed it, and honestly, she wasn't in a position to question someone for having strange dreams.

"What if it has?" She asked, vaguely, after a pause.

"What?" Ginger blurted, sounding taken aback.

Brigitte took another shaky step toward her sister. It was probably cold, but she couldn't even feel it.

"What if the way…I love you is…different." She asked, choosing her words carefully.

"Different…" Ginger gulped.

They were pretty close now. As close as they'd been when Ginger had touched her earlier. Felt different now though.

She felt more like herself. Whatever, whoever that was. More sure. Like she had before the change. Ready to fight, not ready to give up. Ready to work out what to do next. She could think a little clearer.

"Yeah." She replied. One last test. She reached up with one hand, unsteadily. Extended her fingers, touched Ginger's face. "You are real."

"I told you."

"I didn't believe you. Well, me. You were my hallucination."

"When you say…different." Ginger said, again.

"Topic for another day, maybe." Brigitte replied. "You're not dead."

"No." Ginger said. A hand touched her arm.

"I didn't kill you."

"No."

Brigitte felt another tear slide down her cheek. She rubbed it again, irritably. But then another slid by.

"Shit." She grumbled.

"Are you crying?" Ginger asked.

"No." She sniffed, then sobbed, betrayed by her own body.

Ginger pulled her close, into a hug. Brigitte stiffened instinctively, as arms slid around her shoulders. Arms she hadn't felt in so long, held in a way she hadn't been in so long, by someone she thought she'd never really see again.

Brigitte relaxed, wrapping her arms around her sister, burying her face in Ginger's shoulder.

"You're naked." Brigitte mumbled, after a moment.

"Werewolves don't wear clothes, B."

"Yeah, stupid thing to say now I think about it." She mumbled again, still buried in her sister's shoulder.

She noticed Ginger still had her necklace, the same as hers.

"You kept it." She tugged at it slightly.

She felt Ginger nod.

"So did you." Her sister mumbled into her hair.

Brigitte breathed in and out, slowly. Truly relaxed, for the first time in…too long.

"What do we do now?" Ginger asked, surprising her.

Ginger had always taken the lead. Ginger always had a plan. Not always a good one, since Brigitte was often the thinker, but still…

"I don't really know." Brigitte replied, pulling back. "I need to find more monkshood. Clothes would be good. Somewhere to stay, some work…"

"Monkshood?" Ginger asked, dubiously.

"It's not a cure, but I'm still not ready to just give up. I'm me, not some…beast, and I'm going to keep fighting for that."

"I don't know, B." Ginger murmured, reluctantly. "Sometimes, you can't win."

"Other times, we can." Brigitte argued, determinedly. "Sometimes, we'll lose. And for a few nights each month we'll be total, unholy bitches to deal with."

Ginger snorted, then laughed.

"Was that a joke?" She chuckled. "From you?"

"It actually was."

"That's twisted, B."

"Yeah." Brigitte smirked. "We can do this, Ginger." She affirmed, seriously.

She saw the vague, shadowy outline of Ginger nod slightly in the dark.

"Okay." Ginger said, finally. "You've changed. I still remember my brooding, dark little sister."

Their hands found each other, fumbling and clumsy.

"Out by sixteen…" Brigitte began.

"…or dead in this scene." Ginger finished.

"I didn't want to die anymore." Brigitte continued. "I don't want you to, either. It happened once, I didn't like it."

"I'm not sure what I want, anymore. I used to be." Ginger said, quietly. "Now there's…just you."

Brigitte tried to really see her sister, but it was just too dark. She considered mentioning the parallels, the reversal, almost, of their relationship, but decided against it.

They had…they had a second chance. And this time, she was going to try harder to make it work.

"Then let me help you. Help me. Help me help you." Brigitte insisted.

"I trust you, Brigitte." Ginger murmured.

She managed a smile. A real smile.

"We need to get out of here, first." Brigitte said, turning toward the direction of the stairs and clumsily feeling her way across the cellar.

"Are you feeling alright?" She heard Ginger ask from behind her.

"Never better." Brigitte replied, confidently, tugging her sister along by the hand.

She promptly put a foot wrong and fell forward with a yelp, but Ginger caught her by the arm.

"I'm fine." Brigitte struggled to regain her balance. Maybe she wasn't entirely okay, yet.

"Help me help you." Ginger grunted, helping her stand.

"I'm going to regret saying that, I can tell."

"You think too much, B." Ginger murmured into her ear, as they struggled together up the stairs. "So what about this Ghost? Because I'm all for ripping her a new one."

"Ginger…" Brigitte warned.

"Nobody locks my sister up in a cellar like some kind of wild animal."

"Ginger." Brigitte repeated, running her hand across the cellar door.

Still locked. Barred. Heavy. She hadn't even been able to move it when she'd had her strength, and it had clearly kept her in here when she'd changed.

"Oh come on, can't I break something? Something small, one finger? Just one finger."

But maybe between the two of them…

"Ginger!"

"Alright." Ginger huffed. "I tried the door already, when you were asleep."

"Then we try it again." Brigitte shrugged free of her sister and pushed up toward the door. "Together." She held out her hand.

The light was slightly better by the door. She could make out Ginger's pale face, messed up red hair, bare skin and body. Eyes locked onto hers. Looked like she'd seen better days.

But then she hadn't seen herself yet, and Brigitte already dreaded her first meeting with a mirror.

"Together?" Ginger asked, looking up at her, glancing at her open palm.

"Forever." Brigitte whispered, a half-smile curling at the edge of her lips.

Ginger took her hand.


	2. Ride It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having Ginger back hadn't made life any simpler for Brigitte. In a lot of ways, if anything, it was more complicated than ever. Now she has to get Ginger through her first full moon without growing hair in all the wrong places and acquiring a taste for their neighbours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like doing a bit more with these characters, since they're quite interesting to write.
> 
> Warning note though, the incestuous subtext is a little more overt-text at this point.
> 
> As before, let me know what you think and whether you'd like to see more of these.

Brigitte wound the rubber strap around her arm, with one end gritted between her teeth, and pulled the other end through, into a loose knot. She retrieved the syringe, then placed that between her teeth and tightened the strap as much as she could.

 _“The people, they love her_  
_And still they are the most cruel,”_

The only sound in the room was an old radio churning out some old Fleetwood Mac tune. Dimly recognised as something Henry or Pamela used to listen to.

 _“She asked me_  
_Be my sister, sister of the moon,”_

Someone had a sick fucking sense of humour, she mused.

She felt the creaking old bed shift from beside her. Ginger was fidgeting again.

“Srght strrl.” She grumbled, around the syringe.

“I can feel it, B.” Ginger muttered, sounding tense.

“Uh nrrgh.” She finished with the strap, confident it was tight enough, since she’d already started to lose the feeling in her arm.

The full moon was almost on them, and Ginger was getting tetchy.

She glanced sidelong at her older sister. Her hair was already showing white streaks. The tips of her ears were pointed, showing through her growing hair, and her face had begun to alter slightly…stretch. Her eyes were dark, probing, and her teeth were more pointed.

Brigitte herself didn’t show as much. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was all the monkshood, maybe it was that Ginger had accepted the change more readily, and far more often, maybe it was the fact she hadn’t been bitten like Ginger, maybe…

She only had ideas. Theories. Nothing solid.

She swallowed, then plunged the needle into her wrist.

“Brigitte…” Ginger crawled closer, so she was leaning against her on the bed.

“I know.” Brigitte replied, as patiently as she could, trying not to look at her.

They were an odd enough pair as it was, dressed in their second hand, ill-fitting tracksuit pants and faded tops.

She pushed, and the monkshood extract flooded into her veins. She could feel it, flowing, spreading inside her. Like a kind of bitter chill, icy cold, but trapped inside her.

The pain would come soon. But she had to get Ginger ready first.

It had only been a matter of time. They’d left Ghost’s house…more or less amicably. Ginger had wanted to…get creative with the younger girl. Brigitte had settled for some well-chosen, salty language, a few threats, and then locked the troubled teen in her bedroom before calling the cops.

Then she and Ginger had ‘borrowed’ some clothes and beat it as fast as their legs would carry them.

Which found them here, sharing what could have been one of any of the dreary motel rooms Brigitte had bounced to and from in the last few years.

“I’d have killed her, B.”

“I know.” Brigitte replied.

Taking the rubber strap from her arm and rolled down the sleeve of her top. She turned to face her sister, pulling her legs up and crossed them, mirroring Ginger’s position. Then she extended a hand. Ginger hesitantly proffered her right arm, allowing Brigitte to tightly apply the tourniquet.

“She deserved it.” Ginger pressed.

“I won’t kill anybody.” Brigitte replied, finishing the knot.

“I c-” Ginger began.

“No. No more. Or this…” Brigitte stared hard at her sister, through strands of her hair that had fallen across her face. “…this is over. Is that understood?”

Ginger held her gaze for a moment, then looked away.

Ginger was trying to distract herself, Brigitte could tell. She just wished her sister could have picked a topic that wasn’t murder to talk about. What happened in Ghost’s house was still too fresh, like an open wound.

_“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”_

_“You lied to me! You betrayed me! You wanted me to kill for you!” Brigitte snarled, pinning Ghost up against the wall. “Like some kind of mindless animal!”_

_“Finish her, B.” Ginger sneered, leaning over her shoulder._

_“I’m sorry!” Ghost wailed again, eyes wide._

_“Tyler was a piece of shit, he fucking deserved to die for a lot of things, but not for you, not like that!” Brigitte leaned close, glaring. “I let him die, me.” She spat through gritted teeth._

_“We were supposed to be together, make the world pay for what it did to us!” Ghost tried to bury herself further back into the wall._

_“Let me have a few minutes with her.” Ginger tried to push forward._

_Ghost was shaking like mad, eyes flitting between the two sisters as if trying to work out which she was more afraid of. Ginger let out something like a growl and tried to push between them again. Brigitte wrestled with her fury and her reason._

_Brigitte snarled, grabbing Ghost by the collar and swung her bodily across the hall, dragging her through the house and up the stairs. She ignored Ghost’s fearful blabbering, and Gingers goading and egging her on._

_Brigitte threw open the door to what she recalled as Ghost’s room and all-but hurled the frightened girl inside. Ghost scrabbled backwards, towards her bed, facing the door. She looked hesitantly up at Brigitte._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“I won’t kill for you.” Brigitte said, quietly. Already she felt drained. “I won’t kill for anybody.” She shot Ginger a look too, as her sister caught up._

_Ginger looked back, troubled._

“Are you listening?” Ginger poked her forehead. “Don’t leave me hanging now.” She laughed, nervously.

“Sorry.” Brigitte frowned, trying to focus.

She picked up a second syringe and took Ginger’s arm into her hands. The monkshood was already beginning to have an effect, she could feel it under her skin, washing through her body.

It probably hadn’t helped that she’d upped the dose. But knowing what she knew now, about the full moon, it made sense. It meant she had a different way to think about how everything worked. She could try to prepare more for the worst nights. Toy with the dosages, concentrate the monkshood extract, or use more of it.

And knowing that for most of the month the change came slower, she could try and pace the dosages differently. Maybe use less of it. She’d have to restart her records on her healing process. Rethink it for the new timeline.

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it.” Ginger whispered, as Brigitte held the needlepoint over her skin. “You’re using more than you did before.”

“Yeah.” Brigitte replied.

Ever since their break, Brigitte had worked hard to get themselves set up. She’d found work at a local diner. Paid cash in hand, always useful. Found the motel room. Bought the gear for extracting and making the monkshood doses. It had taken a few weeks, longer than she’d have liked, knowing how fast time was slipping away.

She’d dosed herself and Ginger twice a week for the past two weeks, not sure yet about how little they could get away with, and preferring to play it safe. She needed more time to work things out.

Ginger had found it hard. She’d never taken the monkshood. It wasn’t a cure. And calling it treatment was a stretch. It was a poison. There’d been some shouting, yelling.

Tonight was going to be worse.

Brigitte knew she could get through it. Three years of painful, crushing loneliness and inner-torment backed her up on this. But Ginger…

“Hold still.” Brigitte instructed, then pushed the needle in.

It wasn’t that Ginger was weak, but she’d given herself over to the curse for so long. Brigitte couldn’t be sure, there was nothing exact about this as a science, but something told her that she was going to have to carry them both tonight.

Ginger squirmed as the monkshood flooded into her system. She didn’t have it in her to tell her sister she’d actually increased the dose for them tonight, more than she’d said she would.

“You’re too good with this.” Ginger winced, glancing at her.

“Had to be.” Brigitte shrugged, gathering up all the equipment and storing it away in a battered old case she’d scavenged. “No room for mistakes.”

“Gathered that, B, considering what you’ve done with the door.”

Brigitte half-turned to the door of their room, which she’d blocked with nearly every bit of furniture that wasn’t nailed down. Just in case.

“Couldn’t hurt.” She shrugged again, meeting Ginger’s eyes.

At least this dump didn’t even have any windows. Being able to stare up at a full moon after utterly failing to notice its regular significance after three years would have been one twist of the knife too far.

Brigitte was beginning to feel the first twinges of pain now, sparking up, little spikes of it here and there around her body, but she tried not to let it show.

“I was so stupid.” She said, suddenly, still thinking about the full moon. “It was obvious.”

“Werewolves, full moons, silver bullets…come on, B.” Ginger tilted her head, sympathetically. “It’s all just stories, how were you supposed to know which ones were real and which ones were bullshit?”

“Should’ve checked. I recorded everything else. Dose strengths, effectiveness, how fast wounds healed, physical changes…” She shuddered involuntarily, remembering the lengths she’d gone in the rehab clinic.

“So, this is it?” Ginger asked, after a moment. “This was your life, this is all we have to look forward to?”

“Don’t you think it’s enough to deal with, for now?” Brigitte snapped. Her body tensed as her gut suddenly felt like it had been hit with a truck.

“Brigitte?” Ginger reached out to touch her shoulder.

“I’m fine.” Brigitte pushed herself off the bed. “It’s just starting.” She tried not to double over as she crossed to a table on the other side of the room, with a couple of bags sat on it.

She rummaged around in one and pulled out a couple of wooden rods. Looked like rungs from the back of an old chair or something. She tossed one to Ginger, who looked at her questioningly.

“You bit through the toothbrush last time.” Brigitte replied, making her way slowly back to the bed. The pain was spreading. “Got something…sturdier.” She groaned.

Ginger suddenly looked even less optimistic.

Brigitte eased herself onto the bed and laid down on her back. Beside her, Ginger did the same. She could feel her sister watching her. She could tell Ginger was starting to feel the monkshood working its way through her system too.

Little tells. A wince. A flinch. Brow furrowed slightly as she struggled not to let Brigitte see she was in pain.

“It’s going to hurt, Ginger.” She said.

“I’m not sure about this anymore.”

Brigitte rolled onto her side, facing her sister. Ginger did the same. Face to face. Close enough to hear each other’s breathing, to feel it.

Ginger hadn’t seemed ever seemed sure about this, to Brigitte. But she’d committed to try, and that was enough for now.

They’d both walked two very different roads for the past three years, they were both different people, but Brigitte had a chance to get her sister back, and didn’t want to lose her again. It was still hard grappling with the fact that she hadn’t killed her.

All that pain, that grief. The gut-wrenching agony, crushing depression, the anger and guilt. The loneliness, the sense of isolation…

The fact Ginger was here, in front of her, that she could touch her, really speak to her…it didn’t make those scars just go away.

“You’re looking at me like that again.”

“Like what?” Brigitte asked.

“Like I’m not here.” Ginger replied. Her face scrunched up momentarily, the monkshood again. “Talk to me, B.”

“What about?” Brigitte replied, inwardly grateful for the change of topic.

“Tell me what I was like, your own personal ‘Ginger’, was I really so bad?” Her sister asked, grinning weakly. “What did your imagination see me up to?”

Brigitte wrapped her arms around herself and found herself curling up as the poison worked through her.

She couldn’t decide if this was a worse topic than the last. Ginger was looking at her expectantly, though, she clearly wanted something to occupy her mind.

What should she say? The image of what she thought of as her long-dead sister had become her personal demon? The face of the werewolf, clawing and biting at her heels, demanding she let go, let the curse take hold, let Brigitte…slip away?

Or even how her Ginger had taunted her, preyed on her, fuelled and acted as an outlet for her pent-up aggression, sexual frustrations? What had happened at the clinic, during that group exercise session, when she’d…relieved some tension…well, it wasn’t the first time.

Brigitte went for broke.

“Tormentor. Accuser. Nnrrghh.” She groaned. “Se…seducer. Always at my shoulder, at my weakest, most desperate.” Her breath hitched as her blood felt as if it was suddenly afire.

“Don’t hold back or nothin’, why don’t you tell me how you…really…f-fee…fuck, B, what the hell have you done to us?” Ginger growled, tensing all over and curling up too.

“Means…its…working.” Brigitte muttered through gritted teeth. “Your turn. Was it you, or…nnggh…Jason, who attacked the clinic?” Her eyes found Ginger’s.

“Jason.” Ginger replied, holding her gaze.

“The motel?”

Ginger fidgeted, uncomfortably.

“Me.” She replied, eventually.

“You said before about…what you…it wanted with me.” Brigitte asked, tentatively.

“My turn.” Ginger smirked, seeing Brigitte’s expression, but it quickly turned into pained look and she gasped, her body starting to shake. “Brigitte!”

“Hold on, Ginger.” Brigitte reached out toward her sister, edging closer. The space between them disappearing.

“Fuck, Brigitte!” Ginger’s face took on an agonised twist and she hunched up fully, curling into a ball.

Brigitte was in agony too, but she fought harder not to show it. It felt like every limb, every cell of her body, every fibre of her being was trying to pull itself apart.

She managed to find Ginger’s hands, gripping them in her own.

“Look at me.” She said, trying to get Ginger’s attention.

“Jesus fucking-” Ginger swore, loudly, but creased up as another wave of pain seemed to rack her body.

“Look at me.” Brigitte snapped, again. She picked up the wooden rod. “Bite this.”

Her sister took it between her teeth, which were looking more like fangs. Brigitte wasn’t feeling too good herself, but she had to keep it together. If she went to pieces, she was worried Ginger would follow suit.

“Just keep looking at me.” Brigitte repeated, adamantly. “You can…do this.” She tensed as her body started to shake, too.

Brigitte couldn’t handle it anymore, and chewed down hard on her own wooden bit. You could prepare, try and mentally ready yourself for it, but you never just ‘got used’ to it. It hurt. It always hurt.

Ginger was breathing heavily, her chest was heaving. Brigitte found her thoughts straying.

She ground her teeth into the wood, trying to think of anything else. When it was just her, alone, it didn’t matter. She could rage, cry, rant, weep, rail at the unfairness of it all, but Ginger was back now. And her sister was already further gone than Brigitte.

If she couldn’t ride it out tonight, Brigitte was scared she wouldn’t try again.

“Rrrrggghhh.” Ginger growled. Her eyes momentarily flashed yellow.

Brigitte tried to focus through the pain. She spat out the wooden bit.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Ginger.” She hissed.

Her hands were hot and sweaty where she was holding Ginger’s so tightly, but she squeezed them again, trying to keep her sister’s attention.

“Brhhgte.” She moaned.

“Hold on. With me.” Brigitte insisted.

Brigitte wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere, every instinct was pulling her away. Hide. Wait it out. Scream. Ride it out.

She could do it alone. She’d done it alone. She’d been alone.

There was the sound of splintering wood. Brigitte looked up as Ginger chewed clean through the rod.

“B…” She whimpered, eyes imploring her to do something. “I…nngghh…can’t…”

Brigitte panicked. She opened her mouth, but had no idea what to say, or do.

Ginger’s hands were shaking so hard. Her nails were stretching, lengthening, they were digging into Brigitte’s skin. She was bleeding, but she could barely feel it.

It was like before. It was like losing her all over again. Her mind drew a blank. Her heart was pounding, whether mostly from fear or the monkshood coursing through her veins, she wasn’t sure.

“Ginger.” She managed, helplessly.

Ginger looked back at her, the internal conflict plainly visible on her face. Her sister was literally being torn in two. She had to do…something.

Brigitte swallowed, her throat dry as a bone.

Then she leaned forward, closing the space between them and pressed her lips hard against Ginger’s.

She tasted cold, and fear, and bitter dryness.

A thought struggled its way through the confusing mess of fear, guilt, anger and frustration she was wrestling with.

What the fuck was she doing.

She pulled back, abruptly.

The first thing she noticed was that Ginger’s eyes were the right colour, her colour.

The second was that Ginger had calmed, somehow. Settled. She was looking at her with a somewhat dazed expression, peaceful, almost. Still panting heavily, out of breath, but calmer. Her grip on Brigitte’s hands wasn’t even piercing her skin now.

“…Ginger?” Brigitte managed, hesitantly.

Ginger, either disinclined or unable, Brigitte couldn’t say, didn’t reply. She held her gaze for a moment longer, then closed her eyes and exhaled, long and drawn out. Her head fell forward, and her hands went limp.

For a brief second, Brigitte was terrified she’d killed her for a third time.

Then Ginger started snoring.

Brigitte flopped back on the bed, releasing all the stress, panic, tension and fear in one enormous rush of air.

She still ached all over, but the worst of the pain had passed, the monkshood extract disseminating into her bloodstream and stifling the change for another month. At least.

Another month to work things out. Tinker with the doses. Start recording the effects of the curse again. Work to do. Things to focus on.

She glanced sideways at her unconscious sister. Her hair, spread messily across her face, was starting to shift back to its normal colour too.

She felt something she hadn’t in a long time. She was proud of her sister.

Conflicting emotions swirled around inside her, like a building storm, clashing images of her sister. Who she used to be, what she became, what she might be now, or in the future. Her closest friend, a monster, a killer, a nightmare that had plagued her fragile sanity, day and night for three years, or the one she loved more than anything in the world.

She’d done it. They’d done it.

Somehow.

Her stomach churned.

“Shit.” Brigitte groaned, clutching her gut.

She rolled off the bed unsteadily and ambled on shaky legs to the bathroom. Flinging open the door and slamming it shut behind her she half-fell onto the toilet and threw up.

There were a few stray hairs on the back of her hands, she noted as she pulled back, but they looked to be dropping off, if the dark hairs scattered around were any clue.

Brigitte slid back against the wall, gingerly. She actually felt a little better.

Well, she felt weak, hollow, fragile as glass and brittle as old bone…but comparatively speaking…

And at least she wouldn’t have to talk to Ginger about that kiss thing for a while. Maybe she would even forget. Write it off as delusion.

Maybe.

Things had definitely changed between them. She thought things about Ginger, felt things that a sister probably shouldn’t. But she’d thought Ginger was dead. Her ghost a cobbled-together nightmare of her fears and worries, guilt and anger, with her sister’s face and shades of her personality. Her sister had been dead, to her.

Like that made it any better, really.

Brigitte felt tense. Pent-up.

She glanced guiltily at the door of the bathroom. Ginger was sleeping out there.

Her hand found its way down the front of her pants, into her underwear, and she started to play with herself. Working herself up. She bit her lip, keeping one eye nervously on the door, her breathing coming in short, sharp gasps as she went on.

She closed her eyes and pressed herself hard against the wall.

Her imagination conjured up images of Ginger, lying beside her. Or standing with her. Pressing up against her. Sometimes she looked normal. Sometimes her hair was streaked white, her eyes lupine, intense and dark.

She was so fucked up.

She gasped, louder than she’d meant to and bit down on her free hand.

Ginger was taking her hand. Ginger was watching her masturbate. Ginger was touching her face, softly. Ginger was…

“Nnnnggghhh.” She groaned, biting down on her hand again, as she finished.

Brigitte knocked her head back against the wall several times, trying to clear her head.

She was so, so fucked up.

Brigitte haphazardly made her way to the sink to clean up, hesitantly meeting her reflection in the mirror.

She’d never much liked what they’d shown her in the past, which mostly involved her own face. And more recently the still-troubling images of wolf-like, long ears, or pointed fangs, dark, animalistic eyes…

Right now the face looking back was pale, sickly. Shadowy, sunken, tired eyes. Half obscured by tangled, matted strands of long dark hair.

She wanted a shower, but she was exhausted. She didn’t know what the time even was now. Carefully, she slipped out of the bathroom and awkwardly dropped onto the bed beside her sister, but keeping a very definite space between them.

She lay there, listening to the sound of Ginger’s steady breathing, trying not to linger on what she’d just done.

Trying to think about her sister as her sister, like before. Before everything. Before Ghost, before the clinic, before struggling against the curse, before killing Ginger, before Sam and Jason and the Beast of Bailey Downs.

The last time her life had made any bit of sense.

Brigitte glanced out of the corner of her eye at Ginger sleeping, quietly.

And she couldn’t.

She sighed, staring up at the filthy ceiling.

Maybe she could just ride this out too.

But probably not.


	3. Predators

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Brigitte thought they were falling into a routine, an old face from the past comes pawing at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brigitte is a very troubled soul. And the universe appears to conspire to keep her that way.

The diner was always empty this late. Not that she’d ever seen it at capacity for anything, since its patrons were mostly a few locals with nowhere better to go, or whoever found themselves stopping off in this spit of a town on the way to somewhere else.

She’d long stopped remembering the names of these places. ‘Moosetown’ always came to mind, when she looked at them. This one was close to the northern coast, off Hudson Bay.

Brigitte liked the evenings though, when it was quiet. All she had to think about was cleaning the place down. And Hoskins, the owner, tended to leave her to it, which suited her.

It wasn’t that he was a bastard, he was quite an affable old thing. Kind, patient, friendly to a fault, but she actually found that harder to deal with.

She didn’t have a lot of experience with ‘friendly’.

She rolled up one of the sleeves of her black work shirt and pulled her hair back into an untidy ponytail. Brigitte left her other arm covered, eyeing it for a moment. Didn’t want to think about questions people might ask if they saw the scars running up her arm from her wrist.

She began wiping down the counter.

Hoskin’s tinny radio could be heard from his office, out back. She found herself humming along.

 _"Down by old house_  
_Over the bridge_  
_Down through the dark streets_  
_Where we used to live”_

Brigitte’s guiltiest secret, her darkest truth in her heart of hearts, something she could never have told Ginger now, or all those years ago, lest admit she had become some sort of ‘traitor to the cause’, was that she was growing to like The Waterboys.

Two months of old Hoskin’s taste in music would do that to you, she figured.

They’d made it through another moon. It had been rough again, by the skin of their teeth, in Ginger’s case. But there hadn’t been a…repeat of the last time.

Ginger never even brought it up. So neither did Brigitte. But she couldn’t convince herself her older sister has just…forgotten it. Every once in a while she’d catch Ginger looking at her. Never said anything. Just…looks. Enough to make Brigitte slightly uneasy.

 _“You and I stand like strangers_  
_In our Hokusai clothes_  
_Like we come from some strange country_  
_That nobody else knows”_

Brigitte paused, leaning on the counter and drumming her fingers along. It would be difficult for them to be much stranger to one another, now. And Bailey Downs seemed like a world away.

She never thought she’d miss that life, flawed as it was.

Young Brigitte didn’t know what she really wanted from life, but she knew it wasn’t in Bailey Downs. What would she have made of…whoever she was now?

She wiped down the last of the counter and went for the broom. Brigitte began to whistle along with the song, as the trumpet picked up.

She loved moments like this. Nobody around. Nothing to think about. Like running on auto-pilot, as she swept the floor, moving along with the music. Everything seemed to fade away into the background.

It was almost cathartic. Her ultimate high. Her most frivolous leisure.

Not thinking.

“I do believe you’re smilin’, Brigitte.”

She jumped, snapping out of her reverie, biting down the instinct that was telling her to break for the door and forced herself to face Mr Hoskins, who’d come out of his office.

He was standing behind the counter, arms crossed over his slightly overweight stomach. She thought he was in his fifties, though she’d never asked. Had hair starting to grey in patches, and a rough-shaven smattering of a beard.

“Don’t mind me.” He grinned, putting the till back together.

“Sorry. Got a bit carried away.” She managed.

“You could dance on the tables f’r all I care, long as they’re clean afterwards.” He chuckled. “You’ve got a lovely smile, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. Should do it more often.”

Brigitte tried not to flinch.

He meant well, she was pretty sure of that. Probably.

But in his own sick, twisted fucking way, so had Tyler.

_“See... you smile at the world, and the world will smile right back at you.”_

And then she’d let him have what he wanted, let him grope and paw at her body. To get what she wanted, the monkshood she needed.

Everybody wanted something.

Still made her stomach turn.

“If you say so.” Brigitte forced what she hoped was more smile than grimace.

And then she’d let him die, all-but fed him to Ginger on a silver platter, because Ghost had played her. Because she was an idiot.

Ghost had tried to use her to get what she wanted.

“Good work tonight, Brigitte.” Hoskins waved her over with a smile, counting out a series of notes. “Same time tomorrow?”

What would Hoskins want? The dark thought bubbled up before she could stop it.

“Not going anywhere yet, thanks.” She replied, taking the money and pocketing it. “Night Mr Hoskins.” She said over her shoulder, undoing her ponytail and pulling on her coat, stepping outside.

The cold hit her like a wall as soon as the door swung shut behind her. She pulled her fraying black beanie over her head, a size or two too big.

Winter would be setting in soon.

She’d found that another useful bit of information. How she registered the cold. The longer she went without monkshood, or the closer to the full moon she got, the less she felt it.

Feel the cold, feel human. It was almost worth the discomfort.

She glanced upward. The sky was pretty clear out here, the town wasn’t very big. Moon was comfortingly thin.

It still annoyed her, that she’d been so intent on focusing on the curse as some kind of infection, or treatable disease that she’d just ignored the possibility…

_“Do you turn at the full moon?” Ghost asked, curiously._

_“You watch too many horror movies.” Brigitte shook her head, dismissively._

Maybe Brigitte just hadn’t watched enough. It was kind of galling that Ghost, of all people, had stumbled onto the answer before she had.

Although, being trapped in rehab, without monkshood, inevitably crawling toward her transformation, surrounded by people she could only think of as “potential lunch”, her mind had been pretty occupied.

“What are you standing around for? It’s freezin’ out here.”

“Ginger?” She jumped, turning to see her sister huddled against the wall by the corner, hunched up in her coat and scarf. “What are you doing?” She asked, only partly suspicious.

“Can’t I come and walk my sister home?” She grinned over the scarf covering half her face.

Brigitte frowned, suddenly more suspicious.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Ginger whined. “I didn’t eat anybody. Or their dogs.” She added, as if it was an afterthought.

“Not funny.”

“It is a bit.”

“…whatever.” Brigitte shot her a sour look and moved past, eliciting a surprised noise from Ginger as she hurried after her.

She didn’t protest when Ginger hooked her arm through her own, leaning into her as they walked on down the now dark, windy streets.

Brigitte didn’t ask again what brought her out. She assumed Ginger either wanted something, or was up to something.

Sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t enough that everybody wanted something, they all wanted something from her specifically. Sometimes she felt like she was fated to be pulled back and forth based on the wants and desires of others. Stuck forever as the victim.

Pamela had wanted her to grow up and apart from Ginger. Her school had wanted her to fit in. Her peers had wanted her to fuck off. Sam had wanted her to a meekly follow his lead. Tyler wanted her submission. Alice wanted her gratitude. Ghost wanted her as a tool.

Ginger wanted the most of all. Her love. Her forgiveness. Her respect. Her sympathy. Her patience.

Her life.

There had always been something else. There probably always would be. The thing was, Brigitte didn’t know what she’d do when Ginger asked again for something she couldn’t…or wouldn’t give.

The last time it happened, Ginger gave in to the change, the curse, and killed three innocent people. Including Sam.

“It’s getting pretty cold, why don’t we hurry up?” Ginger asked, suddenly, breaking what for Brigitte had been an acceptable silence.

“I’m good.” Brigitte sighed, yawning.

“But…but…” Ginger tugged on her arm, with noticeably more insistence. “You work so hard, you might…get ill.”

Brigitte stopped dead in her tracks, bringing her sister to a stumbling halt too.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Brigitte frowned, crossing her arms.

“Nothing.” Ginger replied, too quickly.

“Ginger, if you’ve done-” Brigitte stepped forward, feeling her temper start to fray.

“I didn’t-” Ginger argued, then seemed to cut herself off, as her eyes widened and she seemed to notice something behind her.

Brigitte glowered at her a moment longer, then turned around.

There was…something…squatting, all hunched up on the pavement further down the street. It’s shoulders were rising and falling noticeably, and she could hear it breathing, panting almost. Ragged and heavy.

“Shit.” She heard Ginger hiss from her shoulder.

Brigitte narrowed her eyes, trying to focus better in the poorly-lit street. It looked…sort of…like a person. But they looked…wrong. Their posture, stature wasn’t right.

“Fff…fff-…” The…person loped closer, carefully. Their voice was a kind of growl, a rumbling snarl. Like they were having trouble speaking.

She saw more in the low light of a streetlamp across the road. Patches of fur, wiry hair. Exposed, scarred skin. Claws. Bulgy, muscled arms. Different sizes. Couldn’t make out a face, just glowing, uneven eyes. A hint of fangs.

“Ginger?” Brigitte prompted.

“Let’s go.” Ginger pulled at her arm.

Brigitte half-followed, half-allowed her sister to drag her along. They began to put some distance between them and the figure, but not before she heard it one last time.

“Ffff…Fffiitttzzzzrrgghh.” It snarled. “Fffiiittzzz.”

Brigitte stared, eyes wide.

“Jason? Ginger, is that Jason?” She managed.

“Yes, now get your ass in gear!” Ginger snapped, tugging on her arm again.

They rounded the next corner at a run, the sound of a broken howl shattering the still night air as the lonely creature behind.

…

“What the fuck happened to him?” Brigitte yelled. “I thought you said you’d…killed him!”

They were back in their motel room. Not arguing, Brigitte told herself, just…talking it out. Only after she’d piled all the moveable furniture she could find in front of the door as a barricade…again.

“Well you thought you’d killed me!” Ginger retorted. “Twice!”

“Why does he look so…so…” Brigitte started, groping for a word. “…so…fucked?!” She managed, giving up.

“Jeez, B, you weren’t exactly a pretty picture from what little I remember at Ghost’s place.” Ginger smirked, trying to play it off.

“Can you try and focus for just one minute.” Brigitte punctuated each word, through gritted teeth, turning sharply on her sister.

Ginger suddenly seemed uncomfortable. She sat down on their bed-

-the bed, Brigitte mentally corrected herself.

Ginger clasped her hands together in front of her, glancing at the floor, the ceiling, the walls, everywhere but her.

“I don’t really know for sure, y’know? But…I mean, it’s been three years, B, maybe he’s gone feral or something?”

“Feral.” Brigitte echoed, thinking about how…animalistic Jason had looked, sounded. “Great.” She sighed, dropping down on the bed beside her sister. She suddenly felt tired.

“Brigitte-” Ginger began.

“How did you know? You knew he was here, that’s why you came out.” Brigitte glanced sidelong at Ginger.

“I…uh…felt him. Kinda. Instinct thing maybe. Hairs on the back of your neck and all that.” Ginger explained, smiling awkwardly. “Had to make sure you were safe.”

Brigitte managed part of a smile.

“Sounds about right.” Brigitte nodded, wryly. “I got an itch sometimes whenever my ‘stalker’ turned up. Used to think it was just Jason, but now I guess now it was only when it was you.”

Ginger made a noise at the back of her throat that might have been confirmation.

“He’s still following me isn’t he?” Brigitte went on.

“Yeah.” Ginger nodded. “He wants to, like, mate with-”

“I got that, thanks.” Brigitte waved her off, not wanting to think too much about it. “Can you…feel me?”

Ginger had a funny look on her face for a second, before Brigitte replayed her words in her head and winced.

“Oh grow up.” Brigitte shook her head, irritably, suddenly assailed by a whole new set of unwanted mental images.

“You said it, B.” Ginger sniggered, shouldering her playfully.

“I meant-” She reiterated.

“I don’t know, you sounded pretty sure.” Ginger turned so she was facing her more.

“Look, I was just-” Brigitte slid back a bit, suddenly wary as Ginger grinned.

“-you just wanted your big sister to cheer you up.” Ginger put on a sickeningly coy, teasing expression as she moved closer.

“I did not.” Brigitte retorted, sliding back again. She felt her heart rate quicken.

“Did too.” Ginger made pinching motions with her fingers.

“Ginger.” Brigitte warned, grasping for severity as she lurched back into the middle of the bed.

“Brigitte.” Ginger beamed, following.

“Ginger!” She half-wailed.

“Give it up, B!” Ginger laughed, then pounced on her.

Brigitte had about a second to replay all their ‘fights’ and ‘scraps’ as kids, growing up. Ginger always won.

Of course, they were a lot smaller back then, too.

Brigitte yelped as Ginger crashed into her and they got all tangled up in one another. The bed creaked, bounced, and the momentum rolled them straight over the other side. Brigitte flailed to grab something, only managing to pull the bedsheets off as they tumbled on, resulting in them being wrapped up haphazardly in a heap of limbs and covers on the floor.

Brigitte opened one eye, hesitantly. Ginger was on top of her. Their faces were close together. Too close.

“I think I win again.” Ginger smirked. “Still got it.” She glanced down at Brigitte. Their heavy breathing mingled together.

_We can't fight what's in us, B._

“True. The only time I ever seem to win is when I have to kill you.” Brigitte quipped, sarcastically.

_I'm not like you, Ginger...I'm stronger._

Ginger groaned, rolling off her and onto the floor beside her. Still close.

“Such a downer.” She chuckled. “You used to be fun.” She slid an arm over her stomach, pulling her closer.

_Oh really? That's not how I remember you the first fifteen years of your life._

“I…” Brigitte started, caught between the unbidden memory of her dead sister and the one now in front of her.

_It's how I remember the last fifteen minutes of yours._

Ginger’s expression softened a little. She looked at her, searchingly, like she was thinking about something.

“You look at me sometimes like I’m somebody else.”

“You were.” Brigitte replied. “You were a killer. You were dead. You were my nightmare. My accuser. My punishment. My predator.” She finished.

Ginger exhaled. Brigitte tried not to flinch as Ginger reached out and pulled strands of her out of her eyes, tucking them behind her ear.

“I can’t defend myself against things I didn’t say or do, B.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, before all this. Before I lost control.” She went on. “Maybe things would be different if I had.”

“Maybe not.” Brigitte shrugged.

“You don’t trust me.” Ginger said, quietly.

Brigitte held her sister’s gaze, unflinching.

“You do everything. You work, you got this place, you handle the monkshood, you handle the doses and injections, you cut yourself up every night for those notes of yours…”

“I have to.” Brigitte replied.

“But you don’t trust me, Brigitte.”

Brigitte chewed her lip.

“I want to.”

She was surprised to see that Ginger didn’t seem surprised at her response. Three years ago, Ginger would have thrown a fit.

“I had another dream, last week, during the full moon.” Ginger said, with a glazed look in her eyes.

“About…those other sisters?” Brigitte asked, inwardly grateful for the change of subject.

“You might see them if you stopped taking the monkshood. Even just once.”

“Not happening.” Brigitte shook her head. “What happened?” She slid her arm over Ginger’s hip, mimicking her sister’s action.

“Still only see bits and pieces. There was some old fort, men there trapped and surrounded by werewolves in the woods. Ginger…she…was bitten. They tried to kill her, then kicked her out.” Ginger’s eyes found hers. “Brigitte chose to go with her. Even knowing her sister was dangerous, knowing she might die out there.”

“You want to know if I’d do the same? Ginger, I infected myself with your blood to try and get through to you, and look what happened. I gave up everything, and-”

“I fucked up.” Ginger interrupted. “I know that, but that’s not what I wanted to know. I wanted to know what she did differently, the other Ginger. I want to understand what she knew, what she did to have her sister trust her so much.” She went on, insistently.

“Ginger…” Brigitte began, doubtfully.

Ginger seemed to place a lot of faith in these dreams she’d been telling her about. Brigitte still wasn’t sure what to make of it, whether they were even really real. She didn’t think Ginger was making them up, but she wasn’t convinced they weren’t just…some sort of product of her imagination.

Like Ginger had been, for her.

“If this is really my second chance, then actually give me a chance, B.” Ginger sat up, and clambered to her feet.

“Where are you going?” Brigitte scrambled up after her. “Ginger?”

Ginger was already at the door, pulling away the furniture.

“I can lead him away. It’ll work.”

“Ginger!” Brigitte grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

“I’m your big sister, I’m supposed to help you, not the other way around!” Ginger put her hands on her shoulders, staring at her.

“You don’t prove a thing to me by being an idiot!” Brigitte argued. “He’s following me.”

“I just want you to trust me!”

They stared one another down, by the door.

Everybody wanted something.

Brigitte frowned, thinking.

What did she want?

She wanted her sister back. She wanted to trust her, to be able to talk to her, to rely on her again.

Half of an idea formed in the tired core of her brain.

Maybe it was time for her to be the predator, for once.

“What day is it tomorrow?” Brigitte asked.

…

She paced back and forth, in the empty alley. There was barely any light. Shadowed on either side by the taller buildings.

Behind her was a large, pretty full dumpster. She’d stacked a few boxes in front of it. Above it was an old, rusty metal stairwell, built onto the side of the building. No way out but the way she came in.

Technically.

Her eye strayed to the bent metal pipe she leaned on the wall beside her, close enough to reach if she was fast. She hoped she was fast.

She shivered. A mix of the cold, her rising fear and the adrenaline she was mostly running on now.

A shadow moved at the far end of the alley. A hunched figure ambled into view.

Jason.

“McCardy!”

“Ffffrrittzz.” It growled, loping toward her.

Brigitte fought the urge to run, fought to hold her ground.

Jason came closer, gradually getting quicker.

“Fffffiittzzrrggh.” He snarled again, closing in.

Brigitte backed up a step, closer to the dumpster.

Jason paused. Sniffed at the air. The tension was so thick she could have cut it with a knife. If he could sense Ginger…

“You only ever could think with your dick.” Brigitte sniggered.

Jason’s attention snapped back to her.

“Bbrrrriittch.” He growled.

“Ginger thought you were a dead lay.”

Jason threw back his head and howled, raw and jagged, then he leapt at her.

Brigitte grabbed the pipe and lashed out with it, smashing it into his head. He howled in pain. She felt specks of blood coat her hand, her arm.

She had seconds.

Tossing it aside, she spun around, tore up the haphazard pile of boxes and over into the dumpster, fighting her way through its unspeakable contents. She could hear Jason recover quickly behind her, already clambering up the side after her.

She turned, seeing his misshapen form struggling through, getting closer. His fangs bared, eyes wild and hungry.

“Ginger!” She yelled.

From above, an old metal ladder shot down and crashed with a sickening crunch into Jason, forcing him down through the trash and out of view. Brigitte scrabbled for the ladder and hauled herself up and free. Ginger’s hand shot down and she grabbed it, allowing her sister to pull her up onto the walkway.

Together they pulled the ladder up again quickly, and kicked the lid of the dumpster down, then dropped the heavy ladder on top of it, trapping Jason inside.

The two of them made their way carefully back to street level, stopping to look at the dumpster.

“Think it killed him? That ladder hit him pretty hard.” Brigitte asked, though she had her doubts, given Ginger’s presence beside her.

“Probably not.”

“They should pick it up in an hour or two. He’ll be fuck knows where by morning.” She grinned, weakly.

“Out of our hair.” Ginger replied.

“For a while, at least.” Brigitte nodded.

“Such a downer.” Ginger sighed, teasingly.

“Look who I grew up with.” Brigitte shrugged, elbowing her.

Ginger elbowed her back.

They shared a look. Ginger half-smiled. Brigitte tried to.

“I think I’m ready for sleep, now.” Brigitte yawned, eventually.

“Oh no, not like that you aren’t. Not in our bed.”

Our bed. The thought hung in her mind for a fleeting moment.

“It’s late.” Brigitte argued.

“You smell like…like…fuck, B. You’re hitting the shower first.” Ginger hooked her arm and led them out of the alley.

“I’m tired.” Brigitte grumbled.

“And lycanthropy has left me with a keen sense of smell.”

“That’s the last time I trust you.” Brigitte glowered.

“As long as you take a shower, so be it.” Ginger smirked. “Maybe I’ll help.” She added.

“Help.” Brigitte scowled, shooting her a look.

More images. More thoughts. Ginger. Brigitte. Shower. Together.

Too tired for this now.

“I could hose you down.” Ginger sniggered.

Brigitte snorted, leaning into her sister slightly as they made their way home. Their fingers threaded together, almost out of habit.

She tried not to linger on just why, for that moment, she’d really, really wanted that shower.


	4. Mature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginger always told her she needed to relax. Ginger always said she thought too much. Ginger decides to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incest warning is obvious. Now we're just rolling in it.

“One…two…” Brigitte mouthed quietly. “…thr-”

“You alright in there, B?” Ginger called from outside the bathroom, slapping her hand on the door.

Brigitte jumped, dropping the knife into the sink. She cursed under her breath.

“Fine.” She replied, impatiently.

She picked it up again and carefully held the blade partway up her arm. A series of other scars, progressively more faded started from her wrist.

“One…two…th-” She counted again.

“Finished with your science project yet?” Ginger hit the door again.

Brigitte dropped the knife a second time, it clattered into the sink.

She closed her eyes, silently screaming.

“I’ll tell you when I’m done.” She muttered, punctuating each word, frustrated.

She picked up the knife again and lowered it over the bare skin on her left arm, just above the last cut.

“One…”

She cast an eye warily to the bathroom door.

“…two…”

She pressed the knife to her skin.

“…three…”

She glanced again at the door. Silence.

“…fo-”

“I’m hungry B, you want anything?” The door shook again.

Brigitte flinched, throwing the knife upwards and lodging it in one of the cheap, plywood roof panels.

“-for fucks sake.” She snapped, grabbing the sink with both hands and glaring at the bathroom door.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Ginger replied, from the other side. “Back in a bit!” Her sister called from further away, then she heard the front door open and close.

Brigitte let her head slump forward, letting out her stress in a long, drawn out rattling groan.

Ginger did it on purpose, she knew that. She also knew she was just trying to…be…affectionate…or something, in her own confusing, irritating way.

She looked warily at the ceiling, the knife still stuck firmly in the soft wood.

Brigitte glanced at the toilet. She climbed, cautiously, on top of it, and tried half-heartedly to reach the handle of the knife a few times, but it was out of reach.

She muttered irritably to herself, grudgingly accepting that she was too short, and that she’d need Ginger’s help to get it.

Brigitte made her way back to the sink, looking one last time at her wrist, before rolling down the sleeve of the grey cardigan she had on. She pointedly tried to avoid looking in the mirror.

You could only really trust a mirror to show you what was in front of it, and that was the problem, as far as Brigitte was concerned. Because what was in front of it wasn’t always what you wanted to see.

Most of the time, anyway.

Whether out of some kind of desire to fulfil her quota of self-loathing, or pure temptation, her eyes were drawn to the glass surface.

Brigitte stared back.

It was almost a relief.

She had a growing fear of looking into a mirror, and one day seeing something else looking back. A face that wasn’t hers. Someone she didn’t recognise.

Next to that, plain, awkward, lanky Brigitte was an acceptable cost. Stunted, moody, dour, flat, weird, dark little Brigitte Fitzgerald.

Ginger had always been taller. Her eyes went again to the knife in the ceiling.

Ginger was prettier. Brigitte poked at her pale cheeks, lingering on her dark, sunken eyes and longish, thin face.

Ginger had nicer, colourful hair. Brigitte toyed with the long, dark, thick locks of hair framing her own face.

Ginger had a body that was indisputably of female origin.

Brigitte stopped short of probing at her chest. What there was of it. Her miniscule self-esteem could only take so much in one sitting.

Late bloomers, Pamela had called them. Brigitte couldn’t help but feel she’d jumped the gun in her case.

Maybe the lycanthropy, or the monkshood had screwed up her growth. Or maybe she was just hoping for some kind of reason or explanation, no matter how crazy, that this was as good as it was going to get.

Brigitte left the bathroom, pausing in the middle of the motel room. She glanced at the bed, but couldn’t find the desire to sleep. She looked toward the desk against the far wall, but couldn’t summon the will to go through her notes.

She crossed her arms and huffed to herself, eyes shifting to the door.

She didn’t want to go out. Chasing after Ginger wasn’t like some kind of hobby of hers. It wasn’t as if she’d ever intended to make her sister her responsibility.

Brigitte sighed, rolled her eyes and grabbed her coat.

…

Mooseville didn’t have a lot of bars. It wasn’t hard to narrow down where Ginger had wound up.

A light frost was settling over everything, in the cold night air. Her breath fogged up the window as she tried to peer inside, but it was too murky.

She couldn’t feel the chill as much. Time was getting on, as always.

Brigitte pulled off her beanie as she pushed through the sticky old door, stepping inside. She was hit instantly by the smoky, thick air and the odour of old alcohol. It made her itch. Every instinct urged her to get back outside for air.

Somebody hadn’t got the memo about smoking indoors, it seemed. Quite a few somebodies, Brigitte noted, looking around as she unbuttoned her coat. For a number of years.

She moved further in, looking for Ginger. Small tables were spread around without a lot of apparent thought. An old fashioned wooden bar ran across half the inside. Solid, heavy looking thing.

It felt like everyone was looking at her. Hard to tell nowadays whether that was just her own neuroses or some part of her instincts, heightened by the curse.

Someone suddenly grabbed her wrist and she yanked away on impulse, bumping into somebody else behind her and getting…something…poured all over her feet for her trouble.

“Hey.” The man grumbled.

She turned around, imagining some large, hairy trucker from an American horror movie and was surprised…and mildly disappointed, when she came face to face with a balding, jumpy-looking man in a suit. Sort of skinny, not very tall.

The word “banker” asserted itself.

“Sorry about that.” Ginger appeared at her shoulder, handing over couple of dollars. “My sister is such a klutz.” She gave her a look as the man mumbled something and wandered back to the bar.

Ginger steered her toward the table she’d been sitting at. The one right beside where she’d been standing when Ginger had reached for her hand.

“I can’t take you anywhere.” Ginger smirked, once they’d sat down.

“You don’t take me anywhere.” Brigitte retorted, resting her arms on the table and glancing around.

Still felt like she was being watched. Like an itch, or something prodding at the back of her head she couldn’t explain.

“Maybe I’ll have to start.” Her sister leaned back in her chair, taking a mouthful of whatever frothy, brown shit she was drinking.

“I-…what?” Brigitte turned back, in surprise.

Ginger only flashed a grin, and pushed over a dark bottle of something. Brigitte was vaguely familiar with the logo and deemed it mostly safe.

“Ever heard of just saying “hello”?” She asked, after taking a sip.

“Not everyone freaks out like that when somebody touches them, B.”

“Not everybody…” She stopped short of going into detail about Tyler, and wasn’t in the mood to discuss at length her particular issues with her body. “…is like us.” She finished.

“Speak for yourself, sis.” Ginger grinned, downing the last of her drink. “I swear about a week after each full moon I get this itch that I just can’t scratch myself.”

“Ginger.” Brigitte glared. “Tell me you haven’t spent the last three years-”

“-siring horny werewolf dudes like Jason?” Ginger cut in. She shook her heard. “Nah. Chance’d be a fine thing.” She sighed.

“Ginger!” Brigitte growled.

“I’m kidding, B.” She slapped the table, trying not to laugh. “I’d like to think I learned some things from all this, at least.”

“Jesus…” Brigitte dropped her head in her hands, muttering.

“What about you? You gonna tell me that after all this time you managed to stay a virgin?” Ginger asked, casually, starting on what must have been her third bottle.

Brigitte lowered her hands, a look of sheer mortification on her face.

Ginger’s brows rose.

“What, really?” She said, lowering the drink, sounding surprised.

“I had other things to fucking worry about, Ginger.” Brigitte hissed, hoping for something to end this conversation. Like a comet. Mass extinction of all life in the local area. “Like the desire to sprout hair in all the wrong places, grow claws and teeth that’d make a shark blush and a slightly…frustrating…hunger…for the flesh of living things.” She finished, through gritted teeth.

Ginger appeared to be in thought. She was looking at her curiously.

“Are you into girls?” She asked, finally.

Only one so far, she thought, bleakly.

“Don’t really know.” Brigitte replied, half-heartedly.

“That’s not a ‘no’, though, is it?” Ginger leaned closer, sounding interested. “We used to talk about this sort of thing.” She went on, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“We used to talk about you.” Brigitte mumbled under her breath.

Ginger didn’t reply to that, but her expression faltered briefly. With hurt, or guilt, or something else, Brigitte couldn’t say.

Brigitte grabbed her bottle and took a swig. She was probably going to need it.

“You must have wanted to though, right?” Ginger went on, suddenly, gleefully ignoring her sister’s discomfort. “I mean three years, the pressure in there must be like a volcano. You at least mastur-”

Brigitte spat her mouthful of beer over the table, glaring at Ginger.

What had she done to deserve this.

“I swear to god, Ginge, I really will kill you if you finish that sentence.” She muttered, darkly, looking up at her sister, trying not to think about just how she had been relieving that ‘pressure’ in her own, twisted, private way.

How she still was.

And now she was thinking about it. And Ginger was being quiet. Oh fu-

“…uh…” Brigitte managed.

Ginger was looking back at her with an amused expression. An old expression of Pamela’s came to mind. Something about a cat and a canary.

Brigitte felt like the canary.

“What?” She asked, with some trepidation.

“You called me Ginge.” Ginger practically beamed.

Brigitte replayed her words briefly, realising she had.

“Huh.” Brigitte shrugged. “Your fault. What did you expect with this schoolgirl crap?”

“Harsh, B.” Ginger grinned. “I don’t know how you coped. Repressing that and the curse each month?”

“Wasn’t so hard.” Brigitte shrugged. “They never looked at me like they looked at you.”

They might have both been social outcasts, the freaky Fitzgeralds, but they weren’t the same. Brigitte could see that, back then. The boys looked at Ginger. The girls were threatened by her. She was the ‘hot’ one.

Brigitte was the ‘other’ one.

Most of the time, that suited her.

…most of the time.

“Bull.” Ginger waved her bottle, dismissively. “You’re my sister, you share my genes, therefore, you must be as devilishly attractive as me.”

“I don’t think it works that way, Ginger.”

“You must have at least thought about puttin’ the moves on some guy. At some point. I know sometimes I just get so…” Ginger started.

“…hungry?” Brigitte interrupted. “That’s just it. Course’ I want to, but is it me or the curse? Is that need mine, or the beast’s? If I give in, am I feeding it? I couldn’t. Can’t. Won’t.”

She thought back to Tyler again. Their meeting in the bathroom stall. And again in Ghost’s house. Each time, she thought she’d wanted it, somewhere, but…each time, it had felt like something else was pushing or pulling her. Feeding her desire.

“Sure you’re not just makin’ excuses?” Her sister grinned.

“Yeah.” Brigitte downed another mouthful from her bottle. “Like I said anyway, I’m not the one they looked at.” She picked at the label, distractedly.

“Oh yeah?” Ginger leaned over, conspiratorially. “Well that guy’s been lookin’ at you since you stumbled in.” She nodded across the room.

Brigitte looked over.

On a table in the corner, with a group of other men, a youngish looking guy with short dark hair was looking back at them. He grinned, raising his glass to his mouth when he saw her looking over.

He was good-looking, no doubt funny and charming. Roguish-type. Dressed nice. Neat casual. Probably friendly too. All smiles. In a minute, he or one of his ‘friends’ would be over, offering them a drink, or something to ‘take the edge off’.

She knew the type.

She had to get the tools for extracting and dosing the monkshood somewhere, after all. Wasn’t something you picked up at the local store.

“He’s a dealer.” Brigitte muttered, turning back sharply.

For a moment, she thought guiltily of Sam. Hadn’t he been doing the same thing? Selling to the kids at her school?

“What?” Ginger blinked.

“Look at me.” Brigitte glowered. “I look like a fucking user. He thinks I’m a ‘potential customer’. He’s not checking me out.”

“Aw, c’mon, B-” Ginger started, but Brigitte shook her head.

“Let’s go.” Brigitte started to move, but Ginger placed her hand over hers.

“Let’s get something.”

“No.”

“C’mon, you must have tried right? I bet drinking or a bit of weed totally smoothed that monkshood shit out.” Ginger pressed.

“Oh, I tried.” Brigitte nodded. “And yeah, didn’t feel as much pain. Didn’t feel much anything, in fact. At all.”

“So where’s the downside?” Ginger sniggered.

“It’s all fucking downside when you’re trying to cling onto some small shred of yourself and you’ve just turned your brain into fucking jelly.” Brigitte snapped. “Like dangling from a ledge over a pit after you’ve just greased your palms.”

She had tried it once. A year and a half after she left Bailey Downs. It was too much. The crushing isolation, the beast clawing to get out, the monkshood poisoning her body. The possibility that each day might have been the last Brigitte would ever see, before what was inside her took over, and made her obsolete.

She’d tried drinking, but it took more than she could stand to make it worthwhile. So one evening, a bad one, she tried it out. Bought a bit from the guy she’d got the gear she had back then from.

It wasn’t as if it was new to her. She and Ginger had smoked it in the past. When the suffocation of suburban purgatory got that little bit too much.

It had been fine at first. The feeling of the monkshood burning through her veins had faded away slowly. She remembered it still, the sensation of floating on nothing. No pain, no hurt…not a thing.

She’d woken up the next morning in a heap by the door. One of her feet had started to become a paw, her ears stretched unnaturally, sharp fangs too big for her mouth and her hands were claws. The door was raked by great, jagged, splintered gashes, where she’d tried to get out.

Brigitte had left town that day.

“Earth to Brigitte.” Ginger snapped her fingers in front of her face.

“Not doing it.” Brigitte managed, pushing down the memory.

“Bet you tried it near a full moon.” Her sister shot her a knowing look.

“My luck being what it is,” Brigitte shrugged. “, probably.”

“So let’s get something now. We’ll chill the fuck out tonight, you and me.”

Ginger still had her palm pressed firmly over Brigitte’s hand.

Brigitte frowned at the table.

“You need some kind of vice, B.” Ginger chuckled. “Our lives fucking suck. Gotta find something you can do that makes you feel better.”

Brigitte was fully aware she had a pretty serious vice of her own. She wasn’t sure that smoking weed was going to top the fact she’d got off thinking about her own sister, for the last few years, and still did, even though she wasn’t exactly as dead as she’d thought. Or that her feelings were becoming more complex and murky toward her in general.

She watched as Ginger looked across the bar, flashing a smile at the dealer, who’d be over in a minute. No doubt happily assured in his estimation of Brigitte as a hopeless addict.

“Evening ladies.” She could hear the smile before she could see it. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“We’re travelling across the country to see relatives.” Ginger replied, smooth as anything. “Taking the long route. Working our way there, you could say.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen your friend there in Hoskin’s place.” Brigitte heard him pull up a chair. She tried to put on an expression that wasn’t outright disgust.

“Need the money.” She replied, turning to face him.

“We’re kinda short, for the trip.” Ginger added.

“But not that short, right?” He grinned, running a hand through his hair. “Name’s Mike.”

“I’m Ginger, this is my sister Brigitte.”

“Sisters, huh?” Mike smiled.

Brigitte fought the urge to scowl. Surely he wasn’t…

Mike grinned.

Of course he fucking was.

“You look like the guy to talk to for getting something to…take the edge off?” Ginger smiled.

Brigitte shot her a dark look, but Ginger either didn’t notice or ignored it.

“I think I can help you out.” He rummaged through his jacket pocket, producing what looked like a packet of cigarettes.

Brigitte stared. This guy was either the dumbest fucking dealer on the planet or…

She glanced toward the bar. The barman looked their way briefly, before going back to serving another customer.

…or he knew the owner.

“Let’s call it thirty.” Mike smiled again. “Since you’re new in town, and I guess I like you.”

“Too kind.” Ginger passed over a couple of notes and took the pack.

“Pleasure.” Mike nodded. He dug around in his pocket again and produced a card. Brigitte was surprised when he waved it toward her, instead of Ginger. “My number, in case you want to get in touch with me or anything. I hope we’ll see a bit more of each other.”

Brigitte forced a smile and took it.

“Great. Thanks.” She replied, wanting to put her head through the table. “We’ll look you up if we need…anything.”

“Good.” Mike grinned. “Night ladies.” He nodded and slipped away again.

Ginger was trying not to laugh.

“That...look on your face…” She started.

“Trying to smile.” Brigitte dropped the act and scowled.

“Impressive.” Ginger went on, nodding thoughtfully. “You looked like you were in real pain, there.”

“Shut up.” Brigitte glared.

“Oh man, B. He likes you.”

“Think I’m going to be sick.”

“Can I get a ‘You were right, Ginge. That guy does want to get in my pants.’?”

Brigitte crossed her arms and glowered, but Ginger only grinned back.

She slumped back in her chair with a sigh.

“Let’s just g-” She glanced across the bar again, when something caught her eye.

Flash of pale, blonde hair. Staring eyes. Roundish, child-like face.

But…

Brigitte stood up. She looked around, searchingly, but there was nothing now.

But…

She’d felt like she was being watched. What if it wasn’t just that dealer, Mike, what if…

“Brigitte, what’s wrong?” Ginger was beside her, passing her coat over.

Brigitte looked back at her, confused, troubled.

“I thought I saw…” But what had she seen? She’d seen Ginger for three years, in her head. “…nothing. Let’s go.” She finished, taking her coat.

Ghost was gone. Just another ghost.

…

“This is good.” Ginger yawned.

They were lying side by side on the bed in their motel room, staring up at the ceiling. A cloud of smoke was steadily filling the small space.

“Not bad.” Brigitte conceded, taking a toke.

She was halfway through counting the shitty tiles on the roof.

“So, you’re really telling me you didn’t want to get it on with that guy at all? Not even a little.”

Brigitte shook her head, blowing out a mouthful of hazy smoke. The motion made her dizzy, but in a good way.

“I didn’t.” Brigitte replied, still counting the tiles. “But in about a week the other one’ll gagging for it.”

“Ever thought about letting it win?”

Brigitte passed over the joint. Ginger took it.

She nodded. Of course she’d thought about it.

Beside her, Ginger blew a smoke ring. It floated up between them.

“Ever actually considered letting it win?” Ginger asked.

“No.” Brigitte replied. “One time was one too many.”

“The world didn’t end, B.”

Brigitte turned her head on its side, to face her sister.

“I thought it was.” Brigitte said, slowly. “That’s…the point. I thought I’d lost. Game over. Like when I killed you. That was it. No second chance. No more Brigitte. No more Ginger.”

Ginger turned her head on its side too, meeting her eyes.

She inhaled the joint and slowly blew out a stream of smoke. Brigitte breathed in, felt it working its way through her. She felt relaxed.

“I wouldn’t have liked that.” Ginger frowned, serious. “No more Brigitte.” She passed the joint back.

“Wasn’t fond of it either.” Brigitte took a hit.

“No more Brigitte.” Ginger repeated, apparently hung up on the idea. “Don’t know what I’d have done if I couldn’t find you, B.”

Brigitte lost count of the tiles. She sighed.

Ginger suddenly shuffled closer to her, closing the gap between them.

“Did you think about me?” She asked.

“Hard to forget.” Brigitte rolled her eyes, smiling wryly. “Y’know? With the killing thing, and the hallucinations, delusions and shit.”

Ginger was looking at her like she wanted a different answer. Brigitte took another toke, enjoying the sensation of calm that washed over her and passed it back to Ginger.

“All the time.” Brigitte said, glancing at Ginger briefly. “Thought about you all the time.”

Ginger seemed satisfied. She blew another smoke ring. And another.

“Even when…” Ginger began, trailing off.

“When what?” Brigitte faced her again.

Ginger had a curious expression on her face. This normally set off warning lights for Brigitte, but she was feeling pretty chilled at this point.

“What do you think about when you get off, B?”

Brigitte held her sister’s probing gaze for a moment, before plucking the joint out of her fingers and looking back at the ceiling. She inhaled deeply.

Not answering wasn’t great, but any answer she could give wasn’t going to be very good anyway. She couldn’t sum up the will to care.

“Stuff.” Brigitte exhaled, lazily, closing her eyes.

“How much did you think about me?”

Brigitte felt the air still around her.

“All the time.” She repeated.

She felt Ginger move again. Her sister was pressed close against her side now. She could feel her breasts push against her chest, slightly. Ginger’s legs bump into hers.

“All grown up.” Ginger whispered in her ear.

Then she felt Ginger’s hand fiddling with the clasp on her jeans.

She opened her eyes and faced Ginger, confused. Perplexed. Her thoughts and reactions were dulled, and she knew it, but this was…

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.” Ginger replied.

Brigitte moved to stop her, clumsily, but Ginger’s other hand stopped her. Ginger intertwined their fingers, clasping their hands together, while she finished undoing Brigitte’s jeans with the other.

“Ginger.”

“Just relax.” Ginger’s hand slipped beneath her jeans.

Her eyes never left Brigitte’s.

Brigitte stared. She felt lost. Found. Confused. Certain. Wanting. Scared. All at the same time. And she didn’t care.

Ginger’s hand was in her underwear.

“You shave.” Ginger giggled. Actually giggled. It was such an alien noise.

“Werewolf.” She gasped, by way of an answer. Ginger’s hand was cold.

They’d been closer than most siblings. But this…this was…

“Ginger.” She repeated, for lack of anything else to say.

Her head lolled back and she closed her eyes again, inhaling from the joint. She felt good. How long had it been since she’d last felt good?

There was a line, wasn’t there? There had to be. Brigitte was pretty sure they’d crossed it somewhere. Or maybe she had on her own, weeks ago? Months? Years?

“Remember, B?” Ginger breathed, gripping her hand tighter. “Fireworks.” She said, her fingers curling inside her.

“Supernovas.” Brigitte managed, her breath hitching. She bit her lip.

“I know…every move.” Ginger grinned. “Yours too.” Brigitte felt Ginger let go of her hand as she took the joint back.

“This isn’t…” Brigitte opened her eyes and faced her sister. “We can’t do this.” Some small part of her brain was struggling to cling onto her splintering concept of reality, through the confused, conflicted, doped core of her brain.

“Who fuckin’ says.” Ginger inhaled again, but held it in.

Brigitte was having trouble focusing, as Ginger’s fingers brought her closer to the edge. She writhed slightly, but Ginger’s legs tangled up in hers kept her close.

Fuck. Fuck. What the…

“Breathe, B.” Ginger said quickly.

“Wh-”

Ginger leaned forward and their mouths locked. Brigitte stiffened in surprise, breathing in quickly, rapidly inhaling the smoke Ginger had been holding. It went straight to her head.

“Woah.” She mumbled, weakly, when Ginger pulled back. “What the-”

Her body practically shook when Ginger probed once more with her fingers, sending a jolt down her spine so…

“Fuck!” She gasped, hitting her peak.

Brigitte rolled onto her back, moaning to herself, her body caught between hyper-sensitivity and complete numbness.

She could feel Ginger watching her out of the corner of her eye, smoking the last of the joint.

“Better?” She asked, surprisingly tentative.

“I’m so…so fucked up.” Brigitte mumbled, closing her eyes.

Ginger edged closer to her, nudging their head together.

“You’re not so bad.” Ginger yawned.

Brigitte felt her sister’s hand settle over her stomach.

“Compared to what?” Brigitte balked. Then yawned too.

Ginger snorted.

“You think too much.” Her older sister started running her hand in a slow, circular motion over the flat of her stomach.

Brigitte felt herself drifting. Slipping. Her eyes heavy, like they were weighted or something. Easier to let go. Sleep sounded good.

“Love you, Brigitte.” She heard Ginger murmur, before everything faded.


	5. Hollow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some days went from bad to worse. Brigitte was used to that. It was the days that started at "worst" that worried her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a bit darker for Brigitte, this time. So, fair warning.

Ears. Always the ears.

Brigitte ran her fingers over her long, pointed ears wistfully.

She looked like a fucking elf.

Another moon come and gone. But not without…problems. She’d been pretty out of sorts in the last week or so and might have made a mistake…or two…with the monkshood doses on the third night.

Ginger was in the bathroom, retching.

She’d mangled a broom handle with her teeth and then tried to eat the bedsheets.

At least Brigitte had managed to resist that particular urge.

“Brigitte…” Ginger groaned weakly from the bathroom, behind her.

Brigitte half turned, grimacing as she heard another round of vomiting follow.

“Sorry.” Brigitte pulled her legs up to her chest , moving further onto the bed.

“S’fine.” Ginger grunted, not sounding fine. “Been a few months since the last time I ate something that didn’t agree with me, that’s all. Not counting that old lady’s cat in July.”

Brigitte pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. Didn’t need that image.

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault.” Ginger coughed. “The fucking stupid thing must’ve thought I was a dog. Nasty thing, had the absolute worst taste in my mouth the next morn-”

“I don’t need to hear this.” Brigitte grumbled.

Ginger fell quiet for a moment. Brigitte enjoyed the brief moment of peace, after the unbridled hell of the night before. If only it would last.

“Oh man, wolf tits!” Ginger whined loudly.

“I’m sorry, alright!” Brigitte groaned. “Won’t mess it up again.”

“What’s been eating you anyway?” Her sister asked, half drowned-out by the sound of the toilet flushing for the sixth time that morning.

“Funny.” Brigitte quipped, bitterly, shooting Ginger a dark look as she emerged from the bathroom.

Her gut twisted with sympathy when she actually saw her though. Ginger slumped out, wrapped in a blanket, looking utterly miserable. Her hair had almost doubled in length, and changed mostly to a silvery-grey. Her brow and nose were far more pronounced, her eyes sharp dark orbs. Her teeth had grown to fangs with quite an overbite.

As she flopped face-first onto the bed, moaning slightly, Brigitte saw her legs under the blanket had gotten a bit…furry. Claws on her feet too.

“Sorry.” Brigitte mumbled, again.

“I’ll live…” Ginger replied, her voice muffled by the bed. “…unfortunately. Anyway, spill it, B.”

“Not been feeling well.”

Partly true, at least. Or…not entirely a lie.

Brigitte hadn’t been feeling well because her head was in a near-permanent state of ‘what the fuck’. And ‘What the fuck’ just so happened to best describe her current relationship with Ginger. And to say her current relationship with Ginger was in uncharted territory was the understatement of the fucking decade.

She had no idea what they were doing. She had no idea if Ginger knew.

She couldn’t control what she didn’t know, so she’d cut things out of her life she knew she couldn’t afford. Uncertainties. Unknowns. What ones she could, at any rate.

When she couldn’t control things…mistakes happened.

Brigitte couldn’t make mistakes.

Ginger’s hand grasped around for hers, and she took it.

“I can hear you thinking from here.” Ginger rolled onto her side, looking up at her.

“You look terrible.” Brigitte muttered.

“Thanks, B. So do you.” She smirked, then frowned. “Come on, you’ve been shutting yourself away more than usual, which is impressive when you consider we share this one shitty bed in this one shitty room.”

“Just been distracted.” Brigitte stared fixedly ahead.

Ginger’s thumb massaged the back of her hand.

“It’s what we did isn’t it?”

“I shouldn’t have, Ginger.” Brigitte argued, half in an attempt to convince herself.

“Why?” Ginger snorted. “It was fun. You seemed to enjoy it.” She sniggered.

“It was…” Brigitte paused.

She had enjoyed it. Of course she had. She’d wanted it. Wanted it more than she cared to admit, had maybe wanted it for a long time. And what did it say about her that she…wanted more?

Where had all this come from? Ginger was her sister, she’d always been her sister, then she’d…lost her. Now she was back. It was…troubling.

“B?” Ginger crawled up beside her.

Brigitte didn’t know what to do now though, what did it mean? Did it mean anything? Did it mean anything to her sister?

Ginger had always been the one she could talk to, even though most of the time she was barely listening. The centre of Ginger’s universe had mostly always been Ginger. Brigitte had been like…an orbiting moon…or something.

And then she’d been bitten by a werewolf. Changed. Died. Everything had gone fucking nuts.

“B? You’re spacing out on me again.” Ginger leaned into her shoulder.

What did it say about her that part of her wanted Ginger to…look at her, think about her the way she’d started to about Ginger.

Hoping for things. That never ended well.

“Fuck.” Brigitte mumbled.

She was so fucked up.

“Brigitte?” Ginger slid an arm around her shoulders. “It was just…fun, y’know? Different, but I mean, I’d…overheard you a few times, in the bathroom…”

Brigitte tensed, involuntarily. She faced Ginger.

“It wasn’t-”

“It didn’t have to mean anything, take it easy, B.” Ginger smiled. “No big deal.”

Brigitte felt her stomach twist itself into a knot and try to pull itself apart. The air in the room suddenly seemed too thin.

“Work soon.” Brigitte said, abruptly. She pulled away from Ginger and stumbled to her feet. “You’re right, doesn’t matter.” She yanked on her tattered shoes.

Shit.

“B? What’s wrong?” Ginger asked, frowning.

“Nothing.” Brigitte replied, pulling on her oversized brown jumper.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Brigitte-”

There was a knock on the door.

“Out of sight.” Brigitte hissed, pulling her hair over her ears as much as she could.

Out of mind too. If only.

Ginger frowned slightly, still looking confused, but reluctantly nodded and got under the covers of the bed, pretending to sleep.

Brigitte opened the door and found herself face to face with the landlady.

“Mrs Gleden.”

Mrs Gleden was a short, stump of a woman. Looked pretty old. Greying hair, weathered face. There was a near-permanent bitter-twist to it.

“Complaints again about you.” The older woman snapped. “Noises last night. Sounded like an…animal in here. More than one.”

“We don’t have any animals, Mrs Gleden.” Brigitte replied, irritably, trying to put as much of the door between her and the woman as she could.

“I run a respectable establishment.” Mrs Gleden claimed, ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

Brigitte looked around at the flaking walls, the shitty, cheap lighting, the sparse, old furniture. Outside, she eyed the poorly-repaired car park, the generally slipshod, cracked, rotting, ‘half-collapsed’ look of the main building itself.

Mrs Gleden scowled up at her, as if daring her to say something.

Brigitte decided not to comment.

“It’s just me and my sister.” Brigitte sighed. “She’s…not been well.”

“Then maybe you should take her to see a doctor.” The woman snapped. “This isn’t a hospital.”

That was true, Brigitte struggled not to argue, at best, it moonlighted as a crack den. At worst, it was a slum.

“Sure, whatever.” Brigitte answered, hoping it’d get her to leave.

“Didn’t sound like someone being ill, from what I’m told.” Mrs Gleden added, sharply.

Great. The old shit was spying on them.

“Not had any men around have you?” She asked, suspiciously.

“It’s just me and my sister.” Brigitte reiterated, insistently.

Mrs Gleden shot her an odd look. Brigitte gritted her teeth. If the haggard old bitch was seriously thinking she and Ginger were…were…

“We aren’t-” Brigitte began, hurriedly.

“I don’t want to know what you’re doing in here, that’s your…business.” Mrs Gleden sneered.

She thought they were fucking.

“Then what the hell do you want?” Brigitte replied, losing her patience.

She and Ginger. Sex.

“I’m going to need a temporary advance on your rent.”

Brigitte closed her eyes, trying to wipe her mind clear of all thoughts, all images of she and Ginger, getting it on. She tried not to repeatedly slam her head into the door.

She’d seen this bit coming.

“How much.” She muttered, quietly.

Ginger was quiet behind her, but she could feel her sister watching.

“Another hundred.” Mrs Gleden replied, calmly.

Fuck.

Brigitte fumbled in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out all the crumpled notes she had.

Fuck.

“I’ve got eighty-five.” She replied, fighting to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“That’ll do.” Mrs Gleden took the money and shuffled off, leaving her with a parting glare.

Brigitte shut the door carefully, pressing her head against it.

Fuck.

She stayed there a moment, waiting for the sound of Mrs Gleden’s footsteps to fade away. Once they were gone, Brigitte felt her anger spike. She snarled, pulling back her fist sharply, ready to drive it straight through the shitty, cheaply made door and-

“Brigitte?” Ginger asked from behind her.

She gritted her teeth, breathing heavily and struggled to calm down. She lowered her fist and turned around, leaning back against the door.

Brigitte couldn’t face her sister.

“She’s gone.” Brigitte replied, staring fixedly at part of the floor where she couldn’t see Ginger, let alone their bed.

“Good.” Ginger replied. “B, I think-”

“But so is the money.” Brigitte added, shrugging.

“What?” Her sister managed, momentarily thrown off.

Brigitte shrugged again, slumping more against the shaky wooden surface behind her.

“She thought we were fucking.” Brigitte said, slowly.

“…um…” Ginger blinked, thrown off slightly.

“Fucking ridiculous, right?” Brigitte forced a short laugh, but it tasted bitter and hollow, even to her. “But she’s vicious enough to stir things up. Get people asking questions. We don’t need that.”

“I suppose not.” Ginger said, still watching her carefully. “Look, Brigitte-”

Brigitte looked at Ginger for all of a second before her stomach clenched, like it was all full up of bile. Anger, bitterness, frustration…

“I have to go. We need money.” She said quickly, bustling out the door. “Stay in today.” She called over her shoulder.

“Will you just-” Ginger started, but Brigitte shut the door.

She turned up her collar against the cold and pulled on her beanie, hoping it’d mask her ears enough until they changed back, then stuffed her hands in her coat pockets.

It was freezing, and it chilled her to the bone, but even that wasn’t lifting her spirits.

She took a moment to ponder just how low she’d set that particular bar for herself, then brushed it aside.

The sky was still dark this early in the morning. Empty too.

Mrs Gleden was gone, and nobody else seemed to be up, she noted as she stalked across the car park. The only light seemed to come from their room.

She walked on, out onto the streets.

What the hell was she going to do.

Ginger was going to be pissed off when she got back. And asking questions.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t given Ginger more than enough reason to push. She’d been stupid.

But that wasn’t exactly new.

…

“You all there, girl?”

Brigitte jumped, looking up sharply from the hole she’d been staring into the counter.

“Sorry.” Brigitte glanced apologetically at Hoskins as he sidled past behind her.

She felt like death.

“You don’t look too well, Brigitte.” The older man was looking at her, brow furrowed in concern.

Even looked genuine. That made her feel worse.

She pulled her hat down further over her head, though her ears had shrunk mostly back to their normal shape over the course of the day. One good thing.

“I’m fine.” She shook her head, moving to take care of a customer.

Another lie. Probably her favourite one lately.

“Feel free to take the day off if y’like.” Hoskins appeared at her shoulder, once she was finished. “I can handle things here.”

The prospect of going back to face Ginger nearly finished her off. She gripped the counter for balance, her knuckles going white.

“No, I’m good.” She replied, attempting a reassuring smile that felt oddly like a grimace. “Besides…I need the money. Me and my sister.”

Hoskins crossed his arms and leaned on the counter beside her.

“I suppose I could-”

“No.” Brigitte said quickly. “…er…no. Thanks. Really.”

Charity. Just one more thing she hadn’t earned. Wouldn’t earn. Wouldn’t ever be able to pay back.

“Just like you Brigitte. You never seemed happy unless you had the world on your shoulders.”

Brigitte froze, slowly turning toward the counter.

Ghost was sitting mere feet away from her, on one of the stools. Smiling broadly, large as life.

Brigitte clenched her teeth together, fighting not to say something, hit something or chew something.

“What…are you doing here?” She muttered, trying to stay neutral with Hoskins close by.

“Friend of yours?” Hoskins asked, curiously.

“Oh yeah, me and Brigitte go back a bit.” Ghost beamed. “We met in your stint in rehab, earlier this year, right?”

Brigitte forced another brief smile, nodding slightly.

“Goodness.” Hoskins cleared his throat.

She was stuck. She was stuck, and Ghost knew it.

“I had a…rough patch.” Brigitte put in, hoping to mitigate the damage Ghost was trying to cause.

“Drugs, wasn’t it?” Ghost shook her head, sadly. “But you did so well in there. And you look like you’re doing better now too, although you do look unwell. Are you eating? Sleeping?” The girl went on, just shy of sounding gleeful.

“I had no idea, Brigitte.” Hoskins carefully put a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s behind me.” She glared at Ghost. “All of it.”

Then again. She’d thought that about Ginger. And Ghost herself.

So much for that.

“My sister, Ginger, found me.” Brigitte went on, giving Ghost a meaningful look. “You could say she…turned things around.”

Ghost flinched, looking slightly unsettled at the mention of Ginger.

“She remembers you, too.” Brigitte went on.

“Oh, good.”

Hoskins cleared his throat again, looking to and from each of them.

“I’ll…leave you girls to it. Take a break, Brigitte.” He patted her shoulder and steering her out front of the counter.

She glanced at her hands, noticing splinters and flecks of wood covered her fingers. Oops. Hopefully Hoskins wouldn’t look at the counter too closely.

She and Ghost settled on a small table by the front window. Ghost was idly looking around the diner, eerily cheerful.

Brigitte struggled to keep her fraying nerves in check. She settled on crossing her arms and sitting back.

“What the fuck do you want?” She growled, under her breath.

You, obviously.” Ghost’s eyes latched onto her. “I want you, Brigitte.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think-” Brigitte snapped.

“Things got a little hairy last…” Ghost paused, then chuckled at her own words. The look on Brigitte’s face made her laugh harder. “…we…we can work through this.” She panted, getting her breath back.

Brigitte frowned.

“You killed Alice. You lied about Tyler and let me let him die, you locked me in your fucking cellar like some kind of fucking animal after I risked my life trying to save you.” Brigitte muttered, clenching her teeth harder.

“Alice would have taken you away from me, tried to help you in her way, and we both know that wouldn’t have worked. Tyler was…trash, you know that even better than me. And…well…you seemed pretty convinced once you turned it’d be for good. I didn’t want to kill you, Brigitte, I wanted to keep you safe, and it was the only way.” Ghost leaned forward, grinning. “And it turns out the other wolf was your sister anyway so I technically did you a favour. Twice you’ve tried to kill her now, isn’t it?”

“Why are you here.” Brigitte pressed, ignoring her.

“Well, after someone called the cops, you I guess, I thought I was in trouble. A few came around and let me out of my room.” Ghost shrugged. “I told them there’d been a break in, and someone locked me in while Barbara was out. Turns out they were more interested in finding the ones who’d done that, and placed the call. Adults are all idiots.” Ghost chuckled again.

Brigitte felt sick. She felt angry and bitter and twisted and she was sick of it.

“Get out.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t hold it against you or anything.” Ghost went on, reaching across the table with her hand. “We’ll do better next time. I understand you, Brigitte. You understand me. We deserve to be together. Forever.”

Brigitte tensed at the last words, staring hard at the younger girl.

“Fuck off.”

Ghost sighed, withdrawing her hand. She dug around in her coat pocket and pulled out a smartphone.

“I suppose I can understand your reaction. But the thing is, you’re going to come back with me.”

“Like hell.” Brigitte scoffed.

“I’ve done my research, Brigitte Fitzgerald.” Ghost ignored her, looking down at the phone. “I might never have thought anything of it until your sister, Ginger turned up. But the spate of dog killings, the disappearance of two of your fellow students, and then three murders on the night of the mysterious disappearance of the Fitzgerald sisters? It made it pretty big in the news for a while, a few years back.”

Brigitte didn’t say anything.

“I wonder what would happen if it got around that the two of you were still kicking around out here, together? Especially since everything seemed to stop after you vanished.”

There was a kind of low, annoying buzzing noise in her ears. Brigitte blinked.

“I expect the police might have some questions. And your poor parents, I imagine they’d be dying to know what happened to the two of you.” Ghost held up her phone. “It’s been nearly four years since anyone has seen you, but I think they’ll probably recognise their own daughters.”

On the screen was a photo of she and Ginger. They were arm in arm, leaning on one another as they left the bar. It was the night a week or so back, before Ginger had…she had…

Brigitte’s arms had gone numb where she was pinching them so hard with her fingers. The world felt very fragile. Crumbling at the edges.

They’d abandoned the search two years ago. It was the past. It was supposed to be the past.

“Fuck you.” Brigitte hissed.

“I’d obviously rather you came with me, but if I can’t have you, then nor can your sister.” Ghost grinned, cheerily. “You think they’ll let you stay together? I doubt they’ll take the time to listen to you about anything, like why you need the monkshood. How long will you last? By the first full moon you’ll have changed into monsters, and then what?”

The world wasn’t crumbling, it was exploding.

Brigitte forced a bitter smile and got to her feet, walking past Ghost without a word.

“I’ll be around.” Ghost waved happily, she saw in the reflection in the window.

Brigitte walked straight to the door, in silence. She didn’t go back for her coat.

“Brigitte? Brigitte! Where are-” She heard Hoskins call, before she cut him off, shutting the door behind her.

Outside, a light snowfall had started. She didn’t care.

Brigitte crossed the street, not heading anywhere in particular. The low, constant buzzing in her ears continued.

She turned down an alley between two stumpy brick buildings. Neither looked to be in use. She made her way about halfway down, the stopped.

Brigitte looked either way, not seeing anyone around. Satisfied, she faced the nearest brick wall.

“Fucking fuck, fuck fuck fuck, fuck, fucking shit fuck shit fuck, fuck fuck!” Brigitte cursed, yelled, snarled, punching, kicking, lashing out at it. “Fuck shit fuck fuck shit fucking shit fuck fuck ffffffff-” She finally stopped, leaning on it, drained, her forehead resting against it.

She turned around and slid down to the floor, her back resting against it. The skin on her hands was cracked and bleeding everywhere, her knees and feet were scratched and bruised, but she didn’t have the energy to care.

What did it matter? In a few hours, she’d be good as new.

Brigitte slumped forward, dropping her head in her hands. Couldn’t summon the enthusiasm to get angry again. Couldn’t rant or curse anymore. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t even do that.

Just what exactly had freaky little Brigitte Fitzgerald asked out of life to warrant this…this shit anyway?

She wanted Ginger.

She couldn’t tell Ginger.

Ginger would kill Ghost. Or at least, seriously consider it. Brigitte was vaguely considering it, but even that notion made her feel sick to her stomach.

What was she supposed to do now?

Everything hurt. Everything tasted bitter. Everything swirled around inside her like a storm and wouldn’t let her rest.

She just wanted a minute. A fucking minute, to not think.

As she stared blankly at the wall across from her, her hand went to the front pocket of her jeans and she pulled out Mike’s card. She plucked out the cheap phone she’d bought a while ago, not that she’d ever had cause to use it really, and dialled the number.

“Hey, I don’t recognise the number, so look-”

For a moment, Brigitte was ready to just hang up. This was stupid. It was a bad idea.

“It’s…Brigitte. From the bar the other night.” She replied, eventually.

“Oh, right, hey.” Mike sounded cheerier, suddenly. “I thought you might have moved on or something when I didn’t hear anything.”

“Just been busy.” She cleared her throat. “I’m…looking for…uh…”

“Are you alright? You sound kinda rough.”

“Bad day.”

“Say no more, meet me by the truck stop near the bar in like, fifteen.” Mike replied.

“Right.” She hung up.

Brigitte lingered in the alley for another five minutes, wrestling with what she was doing, then made her way there.

Mike was already waiting by the time she arrived. He must have left early. Brigitte wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“Aren’t you cold?” He said, looking her up and down quickly when she arrived.

It was still snowing, and he was wrapped up in a thick jacket and scarf, while she was only in jeans and a black t-shirt, with her baggy sweater.

“I’ll live.” She shrugged.

“So, what brought you around?” Mike grinned.

Brigitte still weighed her options. Part of her was still strongly pushing to drop this whole thing and walk away. Go back home. Talk to Ginger. Work something out.

But…

“I think too much, or so I’m told.” Brigitte muttered. “Got anything for that?”

Mike chuckled.

“I’m sure we can find something to help you out.”


	6. In The Pits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Brigitte falls, she falls hard. When she loses control, she loses everything. When she breaks, the only one who can pick up the pieces is Brigitte herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, we're coming up on the final act of our story. The pieces are beginning to fall into place. But first, Brigitte has to run the gauntlet of pain and anguish...while on fire.
> 
> Warnings about incest, substance abuse, emotional turmoil etc, etc.

Brigitte stumbled into their motel room at…some ungodly hour. She didn’t know what. She didn’t care.

 

She was riding high and she felt great.

 

“B? Where the hell have you been?” Ginger was sat up in bed when she came in. She still looked a bit rough.

 

“Around.” Brigitte shrugged.

 

She tugged off her jumper and tossed it on the floor. Along with her shoes, then her jeans. As she made it to the bed, the mattress practically rushed up to meet her as she haphazardly crawled under the covers.

 

She heard Ginger sniffing.

 

“Got a cold?” She wondered aloud.

 

“You stink like…Jesus, B, are you high?” Ginger tried to pull her onto her back so she could see her eyes.

 

“Fucking am.” Brigitte snorted, shaking her off.

 

“Brigitte-”

 

“Mm.” Brigitte mumbled, going to sleep.

 

…

 

Time trundled by for Brigitte in a way it never really had before. It was like outrunning yourself in a race nobody was interested in.

 

She rolled over onto her back. Ginger was saying her name but it all seemed so far away. She had to concentrate to hear what her sister was saying…so…she just didn’t. No bad things to talk about, no things she didn’t want to discuss. She couldn’t really understand, so it wasn’t her problem.

 

She looked at Ginger blankly. Felt nothing.

 

Her sister was back to normal…well…whatever normal was for them.

 

No hurt. No sadness. No warmth. No anger. No affection. No fear. No joy. No betrayal. No faith. No trust. No guilt. Just a face.

 

She rolled off the bed, lazily. Ginger was still trying to talk to her. She always was, now.

 

It had been a week since she’d first met up with Mike. At least…she thought it had. She wasn’t really sure anymore. Days seemed to…blur.

 

Time used to be such a concern. The full moon was a problem  still. Had to do something about that eventually. The thing with the monkshood. Needed doing. Important work.

 

She’d not really been on top if it lately. When had she last injected herself and Ginger? Yesterday?

 

No, she’d been with Mike and his lot again. Smoking. Needles. Whatever was on offer, really.

 

The night before? Maybe.

 

No, Ginger had done that. Brigitte was pretty sure the doses were wrong, but she’d been so tired. It’d do. She had to learn.

 

Ginger’s hand gripped her shoulder but she shrugged it off.

 

“Work.” She thought she said, but her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth.

 

Ginger reached for her again, her arm this time, but she pushed off the bed and onto her feet shakily.

 

“Going.” She might have said, but she wasn’t sure. Felt wrong when she heard it.

 

She pulled on her coat and stepped out into the snow.

 

…

 

The customer, some woman she was pretty sure she’d never seen before, was trying to get her attention, but she was having trouble making connections. Far easier to just sort of…stare and hope they either went away or…or drew her a picture or something.

 

She leaned her elbows on the counter, trying not to drop off.

 

“What?”

 

Had that been her or the woman?

 

The woman looked at her with a troubled expression. Had she said something wrong?

 

Hoskins appeared at her shoulder again, making her jump. He was always doing that now. Never seemed far off. He was talking to the woman, occasionally shooting a brief glance toward her. Looked worried.

 

Brigitte couldn’t say why. She’d never felt more relaxed.

 

Ghost was at her table by the window, as usual. She was watching Brigitte. She was always watching Brigitte.

 

How long had Ghost been here now anyway? A week? Week and a half? When had she first walked into the diner…?

 

Brigitte watched her.

 

Ghost pulled out her phone and started playing with it. Brigitte remembered something…there was something important, she was at least half-sure of that, to do with the phone. She frowned, trying to think, but it was hard, and tiring.

 

She settled on baring her teeth at Ghost.

 

The girl had the decency to look perturbed, alarmed even.

 

Brigitte realised Hoskins was talking to her. She half-turned to face him.

 

He looked quite unsettled.

 

Behind him, she saw Ginger, leaning on the counter and smirking. But…she seemed different. And she was pretty sure Ginger was at home.

 

Ginger didn’t even have those clothes. That tight top, or that skirt. She’d definitely have…remembered those.

 

Hoskins frowned, looking worried .

 

She felt good, though. Mostly.

 

…

 

Brigitte was with Mike and his…friends? Lackeys? Peons? She didn’t know the preferred term.

 

Mike owned a small shop. Sold various knick-knacks and paraphernalia related to a particular herb. Hippy, trippy shit, she’d thought. Not the herb itself, obviously, officially, because that would be illegal.

 

It had a small warehouse out back, the centre of Mike’s little kingdom. They were currently hotboxing in his office. Music blared over the speakers. It barely even registered.

 

It was a dump, but she’d grown quite familiar with it. She’d called it the pits, the first time Mike had brought her. The name had stuck. He’d even scrawled ‘The Pit’ on a bit of paper with a marker, and stuck it on the door.

 

Mike was laughing at something she’d said. She wasn’t sure what.

 

He passed over a brownie. She got crumbs everywhere.

 

Dimly she was aware she was being fucking stupid. Brigitte had little moments of clarity from time to time. Really brought her down.

 

She didn’t know Mike. Couldn’t trust Mike. He was clearly a piece of shit. But here she was.

 

He passed over a joint. She took it, inhaling deeply.

 

She wasn’t even sure what was in it. Could’ve been anything.

 

Felt good though.

 

Across the room, through the haze, she saw Ginger.

 

This would have caused some comment, but nobody else seemed to notice.

 

Ginger was standing up against a wall. She began to pace back and forth, slowly, smiling hungrily at Brigitte.

 

Ginger was definitely at the motel today. She remembered her asking Brigitte about work that morning, but…

 

…had…had she even gone to work today?

 

“You could be giving me anything.” Brigitte droned, running a hand through her sticky hair. Could have used a shower, really.

 

“Maybe.” Mike nodded, thoughtfully. “Nah, not you. I like you, Brigitte. You have this…unique way of looking at the world.”

 

“It fucking sucks.” Brigitte grumbled.

 

The others laughed.

 

Mike would want something sooner or later. Everybody did. She didn’t have any money, but she was dimly aware it probably wasn’t money Mike wanted from her.

 

Brigitte lowered the joint, exhaling a cloud of smoke. Across the room she saw Ginger had perched on the desk, and was adjusting her skirt. Pulling it up. Brigitte swallowed.

 

The tune on the radio changed. She remembered it. Something from years ago, something Henry would listen to. Sing is quietly to himself when Pamela was on the warpath.

 

“I know I keep you amused but I feel I'm being used….” She mumbled. “…Oh Maggie I couldn't have tried anymore.”

 

Ginger smirked at her.

 

Mike grinned. Someone brought out a case. She already knew what was in it, before they pulled out the syringe.

 

“You don’t give a fuck, do you?” Mike picked up the syringe.

 

Brigitte watched, unease rising in her gut like bile. Behind Mike, Ginger loomed, eyes flashing in barely-concealed want and need.

 

_“C’mon, B. Give in. You know you want it. One little shot and it all goes away.”_ Ginger grinned.

 

She wanted it all to go away.

 

Inside the cage of her mind, the one she’d been building for a while now, Brigitte was rattling the bars, trying to get her attention. Ginger wasn’t there. It wasn’t Ginger. She hadn’t seen that Ginger since…since…since…the clinic…?

 

_“It was only ever a matter of time.”_ Ginger started to move with the music, slowly. _“Everybody wants something. Just take what you need.”_

 

Brigitte stared as Ginger began to roll, writhe, shake. Her heart rate kicked up a notch. The room suddenly felt really hot.

 

_“You don’t want to be lonely forever, do you?”_ Ginger breathed, shooting her a look.

 

“No.” Brigitte managed.

 

Mike laughed again, and sat down beside her.

 

“Hold still.” He grinned, taking her arm.

 

…

 

Brigitte leaned on chin on her hand. Papers were scattered around the desk in front of her. Vials of monkshood were cluttered together on one side. She was supposed to be extracting more.

 

Numbers, proportions, percentages…timings, records…she couldn’t think.

 

Ginger was sitting on their bed behind her, surrounded by more paper, and more of the equipment. She was trying to measure up doses.

 

She idly doodled a scribble into the desk with her pen. She wanted to sleep.

 

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Ginger said, worriedly.

 

Brigitte hadn’t been to see Mike today. She’d been to work, but that had been an unpleasant, difficult struggle. She felt everything today. All the pain and anger and exhaustion of the last few weeks.

 

Two weeks, Ginger had yelled, earlier. She’d been like this for two weeks. It hadn’t felt like it. But then, she hadn’t felt anything.

 

She scrubbed at her eyes with her hands irritably. She needed…she needed something…she needed a fix…she…

 

Brigitte opened her eyes, staring at the wall. She felt the pull, the need, the yearning. The sheer…craving.

 

Fuck, what had she done.

 

“Brigitte?” Ginger tried again, carefully.

 

Ginger was treading around her these days like she was walking on broken glass. Not surprising. Brigitte felt the cracks somewhere deep inside spreading more and more.

 

Her hand went to her mouth to stifle the sound she made at the back of her throat. Half a sob, half a choke.

 

She involuntarily felt one of her teeth. It protruded more than it should. Pointed too.

 

“B, help me out here!” Ginger pressed. “You said this was important!”

 

“It is.” Brigitte replied, feeling sick.

 

Her hands were shaking. She wasn’t cold. And she was so…so fucking tired. And the need, the sheer fucking need…

 

“What the fuck is going on with you Brigitte!” Ginger yelled jumping off the bed and grabbing her coat.

 

“Where are you going?” Brigitte half-turned.

 

“I’m done waiting for you to get whatever this is out of your system.” Ginger growled. “I’m going for a walk.”

 

“Ginge…” Brigitte mumbled, but her sister had stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other Ginger take a seat on the desk beside her. Brigitte’s eyes lingered on her bare legs.

 

She bit down on her hand.

 

_“I can give you what you want, B. You know what you have to do.”_

 

Not real. Ginger was behind her. This was…the other. And she’d invited it in. She’d opened the door and helped it. The curse, the beast, the wolf.

 

Fed on hunger, fed on want, fed on need. Brigitte had given it everything it wanted for two weeks.

 

She was a fucking addict.

 

…

 

The Pit again. Only she and Mike this time. She was fucked. On everything.

 

She’d tried to stay away. Tried so hard. But she’d come back. And again. Another week gone…or…or was it more? How far away was the next full moon now?

 

Instincts tearing at each other. Some pushing her to get the hell out of there, others fuelling her urges, needs. Wanted her to get it on with Mike.

 

Mike was looking at her. She knew the look. Ginger had it all the time.

 

She had a bad feeling.

 

Brigitte shouldn’t have come. She should have stopped this ages ago. She shouldn’t have started this at all.

 

“Mike, look…” She started, trying to think through the haze.

 

“I’ve enjoyed gettin’ to know you Brigitte. Never met anyone quite like you.” Mike moved closer to her.

 

“Luckily there aren’t many lycanthropes kicking around.” She muttered, edging slightly away.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Nothing.” She replied. “Look, me and Ginger are…going to be moving on soon so I need to-”

 

“It’s cool.” Mike grinned. “I was beginning to think you were just stringing me along.” His hand landed on her knee.

 

Oh crap.

 

“About that.” Brigitte started.

 

“You’re not gonna get boring on me are you?” His other hand touched her face. “I’ve made you pretty welcome, haven’t I? It’s not too much to ask for something in return is it?” The hand on her knee moved up her thigh.

 

_Hello Brigitte, my name is Tyler 2.0_ , the little voice inside her that was all that remained of her common sense scolded her.

 

“Sure.” She replied, and headbutted him.

 

Mike sprawled backward, cursing. She figured she had a minute or two before he was up and his friends came looking. She kicked him twice in the dick for good measure and legged it.

 

She paused in the storage area outside and looked at the carefully organised stacks of Mike’s ‘stock’.

 

Brigitte pulled out her lighter.

 

Life was just too simple, Brigitte mused as she slipped out of the shop, moments later. She needed more problems.

 

…

 

Brigitte wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep it together. She’d been ducking Mike’s calls. She hadn’t seen him, or taken anything for two days, and it was killing her.

 

She hadn’t seen much of Ginger either.

 

Each day she was sure that would be the day Hoskins would finally sack her useless self, but each time she turned up, as spotty as her attendance was, he wouldn’t say anything.

 

The looks he gave her grew progressively more and more concerned, though. She could see why.

 

What she’d seen in the mirror that morning had unsettled her. The face that looked back…

 

…it hadn’t needed fangs, stretched ears, animalistic eyes or hairy skin.

 

Just her own face, and what she’d done to it. So thin, so pale, dark eyes, tired, weary lines, limp hair…

 

She stepped into the diner, and stopped in her tracks.

 

Ginger was behind the counter, with Hoskins. Working.

 

“Ginger?”

 

“Morning, Brigitte.” Hoskins nodded, worry written on his face. “Are you…feeling better?” She saw him glance toward Ginger.

 

“One of us had to keep working.” Ginger explained. “I came here looking for you once, but you weren’t at work.”

 

“Your sister explained you were going through a…rough patch.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “She’s been picking up your shifts when you weren’t…er…here.”

 

Brigitte realised Hoskins probably thought she relapsed into drugs, after what Ghost had said about rehab.

 

Somehow that stung more than trying to explain the truth, that she was a werewolf and had buried herself in a pit filled with drugs and bad company to escape the shit-show that was her life. Up to and including her conflicting feelings for Ginger.

 

“Right.” Brigitte managed, for lack of anything better to add.

 

“I have to run an errand, could you watch the place?” Hoskins asked, heading out back. “Nobody is around at this time in the morning anyway.”

 

“Sure.” Ginger nodded.

 

Brigitte sank into the nearest chair, feeling like she was going to collapse.

 

She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but Ginger dropped a plate of toast in front of her some time later.

 

“Eat something.” She said, looking down at her.

 

Brigitte tentatively picked up a slice. Her stomach grumbled, loudly.

 

Ginger sat down across from her.

 

This was probably the closest they’d been in weeks.

 

“What happened, B?” Ginger asked, frowning. “Three weeks ago you just…I don’t know. Melted down?”

 

“I had a bad day.”

 

Ginger laughed, sharply.

 

“No, bad days are when you get hair growing out of places where it shouldn’t and develop a hunger for domesticated animals.” She snorted. “Something happened.”

 

Brigitte looked down at the table. She crossed her arms, to stop herself fiddling with things.

 

“We happened.”

 

Ginger looked at her questioningly.

 

Oh Christ, was she really going to have to explain? She’d kinda hoped Ginger would just somehow…get it.

 

“I asked you once, what if I’d started to think about you…differently. What if…it changed.” Brigitte fumbled for the words.

 

“Brigitte…” Ginger muttered, sounding surprised.

 

“Three years I thought you were dead. I told you I saw you still, or something that had your face. Acted like you sometimes. One part wish-fulfilment, one part nightmare.” Brigitte shrugged. “Somewhere along the way, things got messy. Confused. But you were dead, gone. I killed you.”

 

Brigitte rested her chin on her hand, drumming the table with the fingers of her other.

 

“You’re here, but that didn’t change anything. Those scars don’t just go away, Ginger.” She looked at her sister. “Sometimes you scare the hell out of me, but it doesn’t matter. I love you anyway.”

 

“I can understand that.” Ginger nodded, slowly.

 

The pair sat in silence for a moment.

 

“So it wasn’t just…I mean we’re not talking a once in a while thing, you thinking about me when you…” Ginger asked, eventually.

 

“Was an accident, at first.”

 

“You kissed me, that first full moon, when we got here.”

 

“Instinct.” Brigitte shrugged. “Hoped you’d forgotten that.”

 

“That was something else, B.”

 

“I’m fucked up, Ginger. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, what the hell I want.” Brigitte groaned. “I already didn’t know where the fuck we were. You’d come back from the dead, things were…okay. Then all this and…I just…couldn’t.”

 

“Me making like it was nothing probably didn’t help.” Ginger half-smiled.

 

“Part of me didn’t want it to be anything. I need to focus, I need to keep on top of all this, for us. I can’t…get derailed like this, but I did, in the worst fucking way possible!” Brigitte snapped. “I ran like a coward and spent two weeks taking whatever that shit Mike and his cronies offered. Ginge, I’m a fucking mess.”

 

“But part of you did.” Ginger prompted.

 

“What?” Brigitte asked, struggling to backtrack.

 

“Part of you wanted what we did to mean something.”

 

Brigitte sighed.

 

“It doesn’t matter.” She argued. “I need to…get through this and get back on top of the monkshood, and the notes, and the full moon…and now there’s Mike to worry about, and his crew, and Ghost-” Brigitte stopped herself, too late.

 

“Ghost?” Ginger interrupted.

 

“Yeah.” Brigitte replied, hesitantly. She could see Ginger gripping the table. Her brow set in a heavy frown. “She…knows about us. About Bailey Downs.”

 

“Did you tell her?” Ginger stared.

 

“Of course I fucking didn’t. I told her about what happened to you, and me, but nothing specific.” Brigitte snapped. “She looked us up.”

 

“That was stupid.”

 

“I thought I trusted her, at one point. It was hard, after you, but I thought I could.” Brigitte chuckled, bitterly. “Who knew I had such a gift for finding the violently unstable ones.”

 

“I was bitten by a fucking wolf monster.”

 

“You were pretty nuts to begin with.” Brigitte shrugged. “Rubbed off on me, don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

 

“You were my protégé.” Ginger grinned.

 

“And I turned out-” Brigitte’s head was suddenly racked with pain. She fell forward, struggling to hold herself up.

 

“B, you’re not well.”

 

“No…probably not.” Brigitte grumbled.

 

“Go home.”

 

“Can’t.” Brigitte clutched her head. “Have to handle Mike somehow.”

 

“How much do you owe him?”

 

Brigitte sighed.

 

“Not a fucking clue.” She replied. “More now probably, after the last time I saw him.”

 

“Blueballed him did you?” Ginger smirked.

 

“…something like that.” Brigitte replied, thinking back to her last moments in the shop with mixed feelings. “I set fire to an enormous quantity of drugs. After kicking him in the crotch. Twice.”

 

“You are not the Brigitte I remember.” Ginger snorted, sounding a touch impressed.

 

“It was…therapeutic.” Brigitte shrugged.

 

“Fuck him, then. Fuck his friends. Fuck Ghost.” Ginger ranted. “Fuck this town, fuck all of this. Let’s just go, move on. You did it before.”

 

Brigitte looked at her sister. But behind her she saw the other Ginger, still lurking. Still smiling. Still taunting.

 

It was the safest option, but…

 

“I had another dream. About the sisters, that last full moon.”

 

“Dreams Ginger? C’mon, we’ve got problems here, and I’ve caused most of them.” Brigitte grumbled, willing her head to settle. The pain was subsiding, slowly. “You’re…projecting, or something.”

 

“What, like you?” Ginger cut back, harshly. But she softened quickly. “Sorry.”

 

“No, I think I had that one coming.”

 

“I think it’s more than that, B.” Ginger argued. “I think there’s something to all this.”

 

“Well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Brigitte retorted. “If we’re going to move, we should move soon.”

 

“What about Hoskins?”

 

The door opened and they both turned sharply.

 

“I’d worry about yourselves, girls.” Hoskins came in looking troubled, followed by…Ghost.

 

Ghost was holding a local newspaper.

 

“You.” Ginger snarled, getting up.

 

Brigitte struggled up unsteadily to try and hold Ginger back.

 

“You must be thrilled, Brigitte.” Ghost beamed. “Look, I did you a favour.” She held up the paper.

 

Their photo was plastered on the front. She didn’t read the headline, she didn’t need to.

 

“What have you done.” Brigitte hissed.

 

“That’s what I’d like to know. Hoskins ventured, warily.

 

“Brigitte hasn’t done anything.” Ginger argued.

 

“You, on the other hand…” Ghost giggled, gesturing toward Ginger.

 

“Shut up.” Brigitte snapped. “Leave her out of this.”

 

“Would everybody just calm down for a-” Hoskins tried.

 

“I’ll fucking kill-” Ginger lunged forward.

 

It took everything Brigitte had to hold her back and stay on her feet at the same time. She was already out of breath, every part of her body shaking.

 

“No, you won’t, Ginger.” She grunted, through gritted teeth, forcing Ginger to look at her. “You won’t hurt anybody, because if you do, I will leave. You…you won’t see me again. I’ll make sure of it.” She let her words hang in the air.

 

Ginger calmed, torn between trying to get to Ghost and digesting what she’d just said.

 

“But, you said earlier…you said…”

 

“I love you Ginger. But my sister isn’t a monster, you’re not a monster. If you want to be one, you’ll do it without me.”

 

Brigitte frowned. Couldn’t quite decide whether she fully meant it, yet. It sounded like she did.

 

“You’re not in any shape to look after yourself.” Ginger replied.

 

“Then don’t make me.” Brigitte retorted.

 

“Would someone tell me what’s going on?” Hoskins appealed, helplessly.

 

“Oh, that’s easy. They’re werewolves.” Ghost shrugged.

 

The diner fell silent.

 

“I’m going to fucking rip your insane head off you little-” Ginger snarled, but Brigitte held her back again.

 

“I’m sorry, what?” Hoskins started. “No, no, forget it. Just get out, all of you. Go.”

 

Brigitte met his eyes for a moment, guilt swimming around in her gut. He looked tired, and betrayed. She supposed she had, in a way.

 

Brigitte led Ginger out, Ghost following behind them.

 

“Now you can come with me. I’ll keep you safe.” Ghost said, calmly.

 

“Stay the fuck away from my sister.” Ginger snarled, again.

 

“Brigitte won’t be yours for much longer.” Ghost sniggered. “Not if you don’t want to see her hurt. Her best chance is with me.”

 

“Fuck you, you weird little-”

 

“We’re going.” Brigitte snapped. “Don’t follow us.” She glared at Ghost, pulling Ginger after her.

 

“I don’t need to.” Ghost shrugged. “You’ll come find me eventually. Especially now your other friend is back, too.”

 

Brigitte stopped, turning back to the younger girl.

 

“I don’t have any fucking friends, I’m Brigitte Fitzgerald.”

 

“B…” Ginger started, hesitantly. She was grimacing slightly.

 

Brigitte frowned, confused.

 

“How many other werewolves do you know?” Ghost shrugged.

 

Brigitte closed her eyes, trying not to scream. She couldn’t be serious. Not now, not on top of everything else.

 

“I wanted to tell you, but with everything else lately…” She heard Ginger saying, but it sounded like it was coming from far away.

 

“There’ve been a few attacks.” Ghost added, almost sounding excited. “No kills though. Maybe he’s trying to get your attention.

 

Brigitte thought back over the last weeks, struggling to remember whether she’d heard…even read anything, but she’d been so far out of it…

 

Jason. Jason had come back. Again.

 

“Oh for fucks sa-” She started, when her legs suddenly buckled under her.

 

Ginger was yelling her name, but her voice sounded even further away now. The pain from before exploded in her skull again and her body felt useless. She saw Ginger’s face peering down at her, talking noiselessly, before she blacked out.


	7. Take It All Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brigitte makes a deal with her devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some people like songs to go with their fics, so for the ending of this one I'd recommend its namesake, Take It All Away by Red. Stirring stuff.
> 
> And yeah, we're pretty firmly in the run up to the finale now.

_“The Indians say the curse began in the time of the Ancients and was passed down through the blood of generations.”_

Brigitte couldn’t move. She couldn’t see, or touch, or smell. It was dark, everywhere. There was only the voice.

 

_“There are legends of the Wendigo and the coming of the Red and the Black. Legends of the Day of Reckoning, when Death would consume the land, and good would face evil; of the day the curse would be broken forever - or grow stronger, and live on to plague generations to come.”_

No, it was more than that. It was her voice. Hers.

 

Admittedly a bit more certain, less frail than hers had sounded lately. But it was her voice. Unmistakably.

 

_“But ours was a story of survival; of two sisters bound by blood.”_

Two figures appeared in the dark, wearing black. Standing close together, holding hands. Their faces pale and stern. Red hair and black.

 

Their clothes were old, very old. The style of their hair too, reminded her of things she’d seen in books, or on TV, in a few dramas, or documentaries.

 

She was dreaming. That much seemed obvious, she supposed. But it was…different. There was a clarity, a sense of self she’d never felt or remembered having during dreams…or nightmares, before.

 

The two figures came closer. It was…her. Brigitte. And Ginger. But…not.

 

Brigitte stepped slightly forward, without letting go of her sister. Their eyes met.

 

_“A bond that would not be broken. That was our promise above all: above men, above God, above Fate.”_

The voice, her voice continued. Though the other Brigitte made no movement, no sound.

 

She couldn’t believe this. Ginger was right about…well…some of it. The dreams. The two of them. It seemed impossible.

 

Even on top of lycanthropy, werewolves, full moons…

 

But unless Ginger was getting to her even more than usual, the odds of sharing this…dream or whatever were…

 

Brigitte was suddenly in front of her. She flinched at the intensity of her mirror-self’s stare.

 

_“It was in our blood: together forever.”_

The other Brigitte smiled sadly, turning back to her Ginger.

 

Brigitte watched them share a look, and felt something had passed between them. Something she thought she recognised, she’d seen it before.

 

It was the way she looked at Ginger, sometimes. And maybe even the way Ginger looked at her.

 

The other Ginger glanced past her Brigitte, toward herself.

 

_“Wake up.”_

Brigitte frowned. Tried to talk. But no sound came out.

 

_“Wake up.”_ Ginger’s voice again, but louder.

 

It was all well and good just saying that, but-

 

_“WAKE U-_

…

 

“-p, Brigitte, c’mon!”

 

She lashed out on instinct, but Ginger caught her arms firmly. She was straddling her, trying to hold her down.

 

“What the fuck.” Brigitte gasped, blinking and looking around frantically, as things came into focus.

 

Namely, the dump they called home.

 

“Chill out B, it’s me.”

 

“Isn’t that bad enough?” She groaned, pulling her hands free and clutching her head. It was pounding.

 

“Screw you.” Ginger scoffed, sliding off of her and sitting beside her. “Seriously though, I was getting worried.”

 

“Why, it’s only been like, a few hours, right?” Brigitte grunted, trying to sit up. She felt totally drained, sapped of everything. And she was hungry as hell.

 

Felt like most of whatever shit she’d been smoking, eating and jabbing herself with was still floating around in her system, but she could think clearer than she had for weeks.

 

Ginger winced briefly, then tried to cover it up.

 

Brigitte scowled.

 

“Okay, Ginger.” She swallowed. “How long has it really been?”

 

“Few days.” Ginger replied.

 

“Shit.” Brigitte muttered.

 

“I’ve been trying to keep you fed, you’ve been kinda…delirious. Kept saying my name.” She frowned slightly. “…and yours.”

 

Brigitte wondered whether she should mention that she might have shared one of Ginger’s dreams…visions…whatever. She hadn’t been taking the monkshood lately, and they were close to the full moon. Ginger had said that was when she seemed most prone to getting them.

 

How many days was a few days anyway? She didn’t want to know.

 

“It’s tomorrow, B.”

 

“Shit.” She struggled up. The covers fell away. It barely registered that she was half-dressed.

 

“Stay down.” Ginger pushed her back, carefully as she could.

 

“There isn’t time for this!” Brigitte argued. “I need to get the monkshood shots ready, and then we need to pack what we can and get moving.”

 

“…that’s…going to be tricky.”

 

Brigitte slumped back, exhaling slowly.

 

“Okay, what now.”

 

“I’ve seen Mike and some of the guys we saw him with prowling around, looking for you I think.” Ginger explained.

 

“Alright, well-”

 

“Been a few cops around too. Cars driving about.”

 

“Shit.”

 

Ginger bit her lip.

 

Brigitte had a bad feeling. But she had to ask.

 

“What else?”

 

“Something attacked Hoskins’ place last night.” Ginger grimaced. “McCardy, probably.”

 

“Is he-” Brigitte started.

 

“He wasn’t in.” Ginger shrugged. “Lucky for him.”

 

“It was me. Jason was looking for me.” Brigitte moaned, quietly. “We really, really need to get the fuck out of town.”

 

“Any suggestions?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“How much do you trust that old hag who owns this place not to sell us out as soon as someone asks, or flashes five bucks?” Ginger asked, sarcastically.

 

“We might be screwed.” Something else tugged at her memory. “What happened to Ghost?”

 

“Oh, she’s gone.” Ginger smiled.

 

“…gone.” Brigitte glowered.

 

“I didn’t do anything, B, I swear.” Her sister whined.

 

“Nothing?” Brigitte shot her a look.

 

Ginger huffed, rolling her eyes.

 

“I punched her in the face and left with you, alright?”

 

That sounded more like Ginger.

 

“Okay, I still feel like I’m made of broken glass. I need your help.” Brigitte grumbled. “We need the…monkshood before we go, or we’re fucked.”

 

“B, if we inject that shit we won’t be going anywhere.”

 

“Not we, you.” Brigitte replied, slowly.

 

This wasn’t going to be easy.

 

“What?” Ginger asked, in disbelief.

 

“I survived three years doing this shit…entirely wrong.” Brigitte grinned, sitting up again, then winced when her body rebelled. “I have to make sure you’re okay.”

 

“B, you look fucking dead.”

 

“I’ve looked worse, trust me.” Brigitte replied, trying to grin.

 

She’d meant it as partly a joke, but Ginger gave her this…look, and she regretted saying it.

 

She had looked worse. She’d been through worse, when she was on her own. There weren’t exactly any rules or guides to this being a werewolf thing. She’d learned things the hard way. And it was all the hard way, all the time.

 

“It’s not been a walk in the park for me either, y’know.” Ginger shuffled back against the headboard, looking down at her.

 

“I know.” Brigitte replied, looking up and meeting her gaze.

 

Ginger leaned closer, sliding her arm behind Brigitte’s head and began toying with strands of her hair.

 

For a moment, Brigitte saw something in her sister’s face. An echo…or a flash or something…from her dream. The way the Ginger in her dream had looked at the other Brigitte. She thought about telling Ginger about the dream again.

 

“Ginger,” She started, unsure how to explain. “, I had this d-”

 

There was the sound of a car screeching to a halt outside. Ginger rolled hurriedly off the bed and rushed to the door.

 

Brigitte tried to pull herself upright again while Ginger opened the door slightly, peering outside. Brigitte couldn’t see past her sister, to her frustration.

 

“What is it?” She asked.

 

“Nothing.” Ginger replied, shaking her head and closing the door. “Just some drunk pricks. I’ll get the monkshood.”

 

Ginger grabbed the beaten case from the desk and dropped it on the bed in front of Brigitte. Brigitte opened it and picked up a syringe and one of the bigger vials, tipping it onto the needle and filling it. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Ginger fidgeting. She seemed distracted.

 

“What’s up?” She asked, trying not to sound overly suspicious.

 

“Where d’you wanna start, B?” Ginger scoffed, pacing back and forth.

 

“Sit down.” Brigitte ordered, watching her with one eye while she finished with the syringe.

 

Ginger sat down.

 

Maybe it was because she’d known Ginger all her life, maybe it was some…offshoot of the infection, but despite sitting still, Ginger still looked distractingly…mobile. She was tense. Her eyes flitted about the room. She looked poised to jump at any moment.

 

“Give me your arm.” Brigitte held out her hand. “And would you try and relax for a minute.”

 

“Sorry.” Ginger replied, quickly. “I just…want this over with.” She looked at the door briefly.

 

Brigitte poised the syringe over her sister’s wrist and eased it in, then pressed. The monkshood extract flooded into her bloodstream. Ginger grimaced.

 

“It’s Christmas soon. Can’t remember the last time I…we…did anything for it.”

 

“Four years ago. We got in trouble for setting fire to that tree at school.” Brigitte recalled. “We were trying to take the holiday back to its pagan roots…or something.”

 

“Oh yeah.” Ginger chuckled. “That fuckin’ rocke-…ow.” She gripped her arm, suddenly.

 

“Feeling okay?” Brigitte asked.

 

“Just the monkshood, I guess. I’ll get our shit together.” Ginger said, pulling her arm away and getting up suddenly. “You just worry about getting dressed.”

 

“I’m not an invalid, Ginge.” Brigitte frowned slightly, but Ginger ignored her.

 

Brigitte shrugged off the covers, reaching for the jeans left on the side of the bed and awkwardly, pulled them on, then grabbed her trainers and tugged them on too. Her body ached and tensed in protest at her movements, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to her feet.

 

As she picked up and pulled on the black hoodie Ginger had left out for her, she noticed the case with the monkshood left out and started to clear it up. She then noticed one of the needles was missing.

 

“Ginger?” She started, turning to face her sister.

 

“Sorry, Brigitte.” Ginger was suddenly in front of her. “Don’t scream.”

 

“Wha-mmmpph?” She mumbled as Ginger pressed her hand over her mouth and pushed her back into the wall. Her other arm brought up the missing needle and she quickly jabbed it into her arm. “FFFMMPPH.” Brigitte swore, loudly.

 

She shoved Ginger backward, about to swear again, when her arm went completely numb.

 

“What the…” She managed, haltingly.

 

Then her body began to sort of…tingle all over. And her legs started to wobble.

 

“What did…you do?” She muttered, glaring at Ginger.

 

Her head started to spin. She started to fall over, but before she could, Ginger caught her.

 

“It’s a sedative. Not…entirely sure what, I’ll admit. Wasn’t much for science, B.” Ginger smiled weakly, carefully setting her down on the floor. “Mixed it in with one of the monkshood vials. Prepped it while you were out of it.”

 

“Ginger…” She grabbed her wrist, struggling against whatever her sister had doped her with.

 

“Mike’s crew’re outside. There wasn’t time.” Ginger took her flailing hands. “They’ll be here in a minute.”

 

“Ginger!” She cried, but her arms fell as limp as the rest of her.

 

Her sister pulled a roll of tape from somewhere and tore the end, then started winding it around her wrists.

 

Brigitte couldn’t even move anyway. But she could feel the monkshood working its way through her veins too, even diluted by the sedative. She wanted to sleep, her brain, her body wanted her to go to sleep.

 

Brigitte wanted to stay awake.

 

Ginger’s hand caressed her cheek, but she couldn’t feel it. She looked worried.

 

There was a knock at the door.

 

Ginger pulled up a blanket and made her as comfortable as she could, gently pushing her beneath the low, aging bed. Her sister laid beside her for a moment. Ginger looked like she was in a lot of pain, her own dose of monkshood going to work.

 

Brigitte couldn’t even speak. The muscles in her mouth wouldn’t work.

 

“I know you still don’t really trust me, B.” Ginger whispered. “I can’t bring Sam back. I can’t take back that I…tried to kill you that night. But I can save you now.”

 

That look again. The one from her dream.

 

“Ginger.” She mumbled, practically unable to form any other words.

 

“I trust you, B.” Ginger said, softly. “Together forever.”

 

Brigitte could only stare at her angrily, conflicted, imploringly. She had to stop this.

 

Ginger gripped her bound hands.

 

“Love you, Brigitte.”

 

She leaned forward, kissing her on the forehead.

 

Brigitte watched as she pulled back, frowned slightly and leaned forward again, this time pressing her lips against hers.

 

Another knock at the door.

 

Ginger rolled out from under the bed and threw down the covers, obscuring most of her view.

 

“Alright you fuckers…” She heard Ginger mutter under her breath.

 

She could only see Ginger’s shoes, but she saw her sister put herself behind the door.

 

The room fell silent. Brigitte could just make out voices outside. Arguing.

 

Her eyes were so heavy. She couldn’t let herself sleep.

 

The door shook, violently, as someone rammed into it. It shook again, and again, then stopped.

 

More hushed arguing outside.

 

Something rattled and scraped in the lock. It clicked.

 

Brigitte bit down on her tongue as hard as she could. She didn’t have much muscle control, but the dull pain was just enough to keep…her…awake.

 

The door swung inward, letting in a rush of cool air. A group entered.

 

There was a dull thud, followed by a cry of pain.

 

“Fuck!” Someone yelled.

 

A series of grunts, curses, and the sounds of a confusing fight followed.

 

“Get the bat!”

 

“Look out, she has a cha-”

 

The smash of splintering wood.

 

“One of you idiots grab her!” Mike’s voice.

 

“Try it, kids.” Ginger laughed.

 

The brawl moved across the room. Somebody started to cry out, but was cut off suddenly, and then Brigitte heard the desk smash, as if someone had been thrown bodily into it.

 

“For fucks sake.” Mike groaned.

 

Then a new sound. A series of clicks. Metallic. Brigitte’s blood froze.

 

The fighting stopped.

 

“That’s cheating.” She heard Ginger mutter.

 

“Where’s your wreck of a sister?” Mike snapped. “The bitch owes me. Big.”

 

“I don’t know.” Ginger replied, casually. “How’s your dick?”

 

“Where the fuck is Brigitte?” Mike growled.

 

“She didn’t come back.” Ginger replied, sounding disinterested.

 

“Fuck this, get her in the van and let’s go.”

 

“..uh…Mike? Haven’t you seen the news? The cops are looking for her, and her sister.” One of the others argued. “They’re those girls that went missing a few years ago.”

 

“I don’t fucking care!” Mike yelled. “These fucking wasters owe me, and I’m going to collect.”

 

“You’re gonna drag the cops down on us!”

 

“If it bothers you so much then fuck off!” Mike roared.

 

There was some muttering, and Brigitte saw a few pairs of shoes walk out the door.

 

“Now get her in the fucking van and let’s move.” Mike ordered.

 

“No need to push.” Ginger complained.

 

“Shut up.” Mike hissed.

 

“Hey, Mike?”

 

They were all nearly out the door, from what Brigitte could tell.

 

“Wha-yyaarrghhh!” He screeched suddenly.

 

There was another brief scuffle, followed by Ginger laughing as they left.

 

Suddenly, Brigitte could smell it. More than that, she could…could almost taste it. In the air.

 

Blood.

 

“The bitch fucking bit me!” Mike whined, as the door slammed shut behind him.

 

She heard the van screech away, outside.

 

Brigitte frowned.

 

She had to move.

 

She had to go after them.

 

She had to find Ginger.

 

The blood was still in the air, thin, fading. She fixated on it, latched onto it with every sense she had like an anchor.

 

It took every ounce of her focus, but she managed to crawl out, painstakingly slowly, from under the bed.

 

There was the knife, in the bathroom. She needed it.

 

The smell, taste of the blood was fading quickly, but it was enough to cut through the dull weight of the sedative. She needed more though.

 

_“I can give you what you want, B.”_

 

Ginger stood over her, looking unimpressed. She looked more sexually charged each time she appeared. This time she was downright..

 

Brigitte focused on the blood. This was all she fucking needed, right now.

 

Brigitte dragged herself across the floor, noting the ruin of their room. Broken chair, smashed desk, dents in the walls.

 

They didn’t know Ginger like she did.

 

_“Let me win this one time, I’ll fuck up every one of them. I’ll ruin every last person who ever screwed you over, B. You know I can.”_

_I know_ , Brigitte thought. That was the problem.

 

She grabbed onto the doorframe of the bathroom and, against every protest of her body, pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. She lurched forward, grabbing onto the sink and using it to hold herself up.

 

_“You can fight the monkshood. It wasn’t strong enough anyway.”_ Ginger sniggered, from behind her. _“She got it wrong.”_

Brigitte forced herself to look into the mirror. Ginger was at her shoulder, grinning.

 

Her body felt wrong. Like having pins and needles everywhere. But her hallucination was right.

 

Ginger hadn’t used enough monkshood. Or maybe the sedative had muted its effect, or…

 

Her jaw wasn’t quite the same shape. And her ears poked through her tumbling, messy hair. Her eyes were darker, more orb-like.

 

She could inject herself again, but…

 

_“You need me, Brigitte.”_ Ginger leaned closer, resting her head on her shoulder. _“If you want to save her, you need me.”_

Brigitte glared at her reflection. At the fake Ginger.

 

She fumbled for the drawer, and pulled out the knife, awkwardly using it to hack the tape from her wrists.

 

Her heart was thumping in her chest as she gripped the knife tightly in her hand, lowering it over her right arm. She turned on the taps.

 

Blood could pull her out of this drugged stupor. Blood would also feed the beast. But she needed it. To save her sister, she needed the thing, the curse, the infection which had ruined whatever life she might have had.

 

Dimly she wondered whether Ginger had known exactly what she was doing. The sedative, the diluted monkshood, keeping her out of Mike’s way…

 

_“I trust you, B. Together forever.”_

 

Brigitte gripped the knife so hard her knuckles were white.

 

 

 

She needed it to salvage whatever life she might still have a chance at, with Ginger.

 

“Together forever.” She whispered.

 

_“You can’t control this, B.”_ Ginger whispered into her ear. _“But you need me.”_

 

Brigitte glared at Ginger again.

 

“You need me too.” She spat, through gritted teeth, and sliced into her arm.

 

It was like taking a cold shower. She could smell it, taste it. God, she _hungered_ for it.

 

_“More.”_ Ginger shivered, sliding her arms around her shoulders.

 

She cut in again. Blood poured down her arm. The pain made her…feel…

 

_“…alive?”_ Ginger smirked, hugging her from behind now. _“More, go on.”_

 

Brigitte stopped.

 

She grabbed the sink again, feeling lightheaded.

 

“I can’t let go.” She said, slowly, measured.

 

_“No, you can’t control this! You can’t control me!”_ Ginger snarled, stepping back.

“I can’t. But I can use you. I need…parts of you.” She looked at her hand. Her skin had darkened, felt coarser. And her nails had grown into claws.

 

She swallowed, fighting down the urge to vomit and eat the nearest edible object at the same time. The smell of the blood was…overpowering. But it was…working.

 

_“You can’t walk that line.”_ Ginger laughed, cruelly. _“You’re not strong enough. One misstep and you’re gone, Brigitte. One fuck up and you’re mine again. And this time, we’re not locked in some loony girl’s cellar.”_

“Watch me.” Brigitte glowered, tightening her grip on the sink.

 

_“I’m going to enjoy this, B.”_ Ginger smirked. _“I’m going to enjoy you.”_

 

Brigitte gritted her teeth. The taste of it, it was in the air. She snarled, involuntarily and lurched forward. When she looked up at the mirror again her eyes were fully dark and her teeth had grown into fangs.

 

“Fffffrrrrkkk.” She groaned, feeling like she was being torn in two.

 

The sink shattered in her hands, scattering water and ceramic shards all over the floor. She stumbled back into the wall, flailing for purchase.

 

_“You can do-”_ Ginger was in her face, screaming.

 

“Fuck off!” Brigitte shouted.

 

She lashed out at Ginger, but she wasn’t there. She wound up putting her fist through the mirror.

 

Brigitte panted heavily, uncurling her bloodied hand and flexing it. Water continued to drain onto the floor, mingling with her blood.

 

Ginger, or whatever part of her, or the beast that wore her sister’s face, was gone.

 

The shattered mirror showed her a hundred part-reflections of a face she didn’t recognise, but felt she knew. Part Brigitte, part…something else. Something animal.

 

She felt strong. She felt powerful. She felt energised.

 

She felt hungry.

 

Brigitte left the bathroom and grabbed her rucksack. She threw all the monkshood extract she still had prepared into it, along with a few other things she knew they’d need. She grabbed a light jacket and yanked it on, then pulled her hood up, hoping it’d mask her face a bit.

 

“What the hell have you done to my motel?!”

 

Brigitte spun around. Mrs Gleden stood in the doorway, torn between shock and fury.

 

“You?” Mrs Gleden balked. “But I thought-…I…I…” She trailed off, really seeing Brigitte for the first time, her face twisted in alarm.

 

“You thought Mike had taken care of both of us?” Brigitte snarled, baring her teeth.

 

“What…what are you?!” The older woman gasped, stepping backward.

 

Brigitte was faster. She closed the gap, pushing the woman into a wall and leaning close. Close enough to smell her fear, hear her pulse…shit, she could almost _taste_ her already…

 

“I should fucking kill you.” Brigitte growled, through gritted teeth.

 

Her blood felt hot, her heartbeat quickened at the thought. She was so… _hungry_ …

 

“P-please…” Mrs Gleden moaned.

 

Brigitte breathed in, and out slowly, quashing the yearning, the desire to tear the woman to fucking pieces, as best she could. She grabbed Mrs Gleden around the throat and squeezed.

 

“I don’t know where you’ve been.” Brigitte hissed, then threw the woman easily aside.

 

She tumbled into the ruin of the desk with a cry and lay there, wide-eyed, too afraid to move.

 

Hefting the rucksack over her shoulder, she headed for the door, leaving their wrecked room behind.

 

Brigitte was going back for Ginger, and then they were going to get out of town, together.

 

But first she had a few stops to make.


	8. Endurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginger knew about suffering. She'd suffered, she'd also endured.
> 
> But this was something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a bit different this time. This chapter is told from Ginger's perspective, and its the only one that will be, but I felt like it was important to give a glimpse into what Ginger thinks, feels and wants for herself, without Brigitte's own bias.
> 
> While I personally do consider Brigitte to be the main character of the series, for a number of reasons, I'd planned this story quite a ways in advance, and this seemed to be the best place for it, kind of like a brief interlude before the finale kicks off. It was meant to explore a little of what Ginger went through, and got up to during the three years I put between GS and GS: Unleashed.
> 
> Needless to say, I think she had just as rough a time as her sister.

Ginger bit down hard on the chain-links, trying not to scream.

 

Agony. Agony would be the word.

 

Mike’s boys had cuffed her to a cluster of pipes in his office, her arms pulled around them so she was forced to sort of embrace them for balance.

 

Christ, if she didn’t know better already she’d swear the monkshood was fucking killing her from the inside out.

 

She’d lowered herself awkwardly to the floor, and started using the chain on her cuffs as a chew toy to stifle the rising urge to cry out. Last thing she wanted was Mike or the others coming by to check on her.

 

Brigitte had done this for three years. Three fucking years. She’d only been using it for about three months.

 

This fucking sucked.

 

She could hear Mike’s crew moving about outside the office, and probably keeping an eye out for the police.

 

The drive here in the van had been uncomfortable, with them too scared to floor it and get caught out, but too worried to move too slowly and get asked questions because they just happened to be driving an unmarked van that early in the morning.

 

None of them struck Ginger as being particularly at ease with what Mike was doing.

 

They were drug-pushers. They sold to a few locals, the drifters who stopped off in town, and couriers from other ‘businesses’. They weren’t kidnappers. They definitely weren’t hardened criminals.

 

But they had guns, they were scared, and Mike wasn’t much of a thinker. That made them pretty dangerous.

 

The pain was getting worse. She whimpered, involuntarily, biting down harder on the metal cuffs.

 

Mike was adamant Brigitte would come back for her. So was Ginger, to be honest. But unlike Mike, she didn’t think Brigitte would be stupid enough to just walk in the door with her hands raised in surrender.

 

Brigitte had never really liked to admit it to herself, but a lot of the times she remembered ‘Ginger’ getting them in trouble had been based on Brigitte’s ‘ideas’.

 

Brigitte had great ideas. Downright conniving. She was devious as hell when she wanted to be.

 

The room started to wobble slightly, and her vision wavered. She clenched her eyes shut, pressing her head against the pipe.

 

She would come back for her. Ginger knew that. Even after everything Ginger had done, fucked up, ruined…Brigitte would still come back for her.

 

Even after…

 

…

 

Ginger awoke screaming, flailing around for grip. Her hands fumbled uselessly, feeling all wrong. Not the right muscles, not the right hands, not the right…

 

She screamed again, coarse and raw, one hand going to her chest where the knife, where Brigitte…

 

…nothing.

 

Her mind, her memories were all jumbled, things came back to her out of order.

 

She was Ginger. She had hands and feet, arms. No tail, no paws, no fur.

 

No knife in her chest.

 

“Fuck! Brigitte!” She cried, rolling onto her back. “Fuck, fuck, I’m sorry! Brigitte!” Tears were sliding down her face. She could still feel it, the knife, where it had plunged into her chest. Cold and sharp.

 

She was covered in blood, and naked. Cold. Wet.

 

Trees were all around her. The ground coated in damp, fallen leaves.

 

“Brigitte!” She cried again, helplessly.

 

There was so much blood. It was in her hair, on her skin, under her nails, in her…mouth.

 

She rolled over sharply and threw up.

 

So much blood. Stuff stuck in her teeth.

 

She threw up again.

 

Memories in flashes. Sharp. Painful.

_Trina dead in their kitchen. Burying her under the shed._

 

“Oh god…oh god…”

 

_More memories. Their teacher, sprawled over his desk. Her nails…claws raked across his face._

 

Her stomach rebelled.

 

“Oh fuck…” She threw up again.

 

_The janitor. Biting, clawing at him. Tearing his heart out with her bare fucking hands…_

 

“Oh…fuck…fuck…” She panted, dry heaving. Nothing left. Nothing left.

 

_Sam. Just flashing images now. Anger. Red. Violence. When the wolf had taken over. The hunger._

_Mauling him. Dragging him through the house. So much blood. Gouging his throat out. So much blood._

 

“B-B-Brigitte!” She whimpered, clutching her stomach and sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

 

_The look on Brigitte’s face. That look. The fear. The horror. The sadness. The betrayal._

 

It all came back.

 

_Brigitte lying to Sam to cover for her. Lying to the school for her. Lying to their parents for her. Begging her to stop. Pleading her try and fix things. Holding her after she’d been bitten. Holding her after she killed Norman. Holding her after she tried to cut her tail off._

 

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, sobbing.

 

_Brigitte looking at her, horrified, as she advanced toward her in the empty school halls._

 

_“You know, we're almost not even related anymore.”_

“Oh god…” She retched again.

 

_Brigitte trying to swallow mouthfuls of Sam’s blood. Spitting it up, afterwards. Even then, even when there was practically nothing of Ginger left but a little voice trapped and screaming inside the wolf. Even then…_

 

_“I can’t…I won’t!_ ”

 

“What the fuck…” Ginger rasped. She wanted to throw up.

 

She felt so weak. Her body felt like it belonged to somebody else. Weakly, she rolled onto her side and latched onto a tree for support, using it to pull herself up.

 

Still so much blood. Couldn’t tell whose. What else happened? What else?

 

_“I’m not dying in this room with you!”_

_Brigitte had tried to cure her, but Ginger had been long past reasoning with. She’d thrown away that chance, long ago._

_The wolf had leapt at Brigitte. Brigitte had raised the knife._

 

Her chest still burned where it had gone in, though there was no scar, no sign of it now.

 

She remembered collapsing, tired and bleeding on the floor of the bedroom. She remembered feeling cold. She remembered her heart slowing, more and more…

 

Brigitte sat down beside her. Holding her changed, twisted form for…hours, maybe. Crying quietly.

 

Then nothing. Nothing.

 

She looked around. Through the trees, far away, she could make out the backs of a row of houses.

 

Bailey Downs. She was still in Bailey Downs.

 

Ginger took a careful step, letting go of the tree.

 

Another memory hit her like a truck and she grabbed it again, as her legs almost buckled under her own weight.

 

_Brigitte grabbed the knife, cut Ginger’s palm._

_Sam in the corner, begging her to stop._

“No…” Ginger gasped.

 

_Brigitte gripped the knife harder, glaring hard into Ginger’s eyes._

_She sliced her own palm._

 

“No, no no no no…” Ginger shut her eyes and shook her head.

 

Not this. Not this.

 

_Brigitte grabbed her hand and pressed it against Ginger’s, forcefully. A cruel mockery of their ‘pact’. Mingling their blood. Infecting herself. Taking the curse._

_“Now I am you.”_

“Oh god, Brigitte, what the fuck did you do? What the fuck have I done?” Ginger moaned, clinging to the tree.

 

Brigitte was still out there somewhere. With her curse. Her burden. Alone.

 

She had to find her.

 

Nothing else mattered.

 

Ginger remained rooted to the spot for a moment, as it sunk in she hadn’t the first idea how to go about finding her sister.

 

Ginger looked in the direction of Bailey Downs, trying to order her thoughts. Focus. One thing at a time.

 

Food. Clothes. Information.

 

She let go of the tree, stumbling painfully on towards the gardens.

 

Memories, nightmares, swam around her head, but she gritted her teeth and forced them aside, thinking only of Brigitte.

 

She’d find her. No matter how long, no matter how hard. She’d find her sister. She’d…make this right. Fix this. Somehow.

 

They’d be together. Some day.

 

…

 

Ginger growled, flexing her fingers and straining against her cuffs. The monkshood was…

 

…she’d never been in so much pain. Not that she could remember.

 

She wanted Brigitte. She needed her. She wasn’t sure she could do this alone.

 

Brigitte had told her the monkshood wasn’t always enough on its own. It took a lot of your own will. But that didn’t come easily, for her. She’d spent years without fighting the transformations at all.

 

And unlike taking the monkshood, the change came a little easier every time…

 

…

 

Part of her had dared to hope that she might not transform again. That once was enough, that just maybe…whatever it was had burned itself out or something.

 

But about a week after she left Bailey Downs behind, she began to notice it again. The changes had started again. Small things at first, like before. Streaks of white in her hair, her teeth sharpening to points and growing, her nails becoming claws.

 

The hunger.

 

She’d balked at first, at the killing. But her decision to stay away from civilisation had eventually forced it on her. She’d learned, the painstakingly hard and slow way, how to hunt. How to stalk. How to end the life of things living around her.

 

Ginger didn’t have the first notion of where Brigitte had gone, besides leaving Bailey Downs. She left quickly too, once the posters started appearing, and her photo, along with Brigitte’s, started showing up in the papers and on the news.

 

They were missing, feared dead.

 

She wasn’t surprised, given the state she’d left their home in. Furniture trashed, rooms torn up, blood smeared and clawed all over the place, and…and Sam’s body in their bedroom.

 

And neither she or Brigitte anywhere to be found.

 

That probably raised a lot of questions.

 

It was as good a reason as any to put as much distance between herself and Bailey Downs as she could though, and north was the easiest option.

 

After everything that had happened, she kept mostly to herself. It was too dangerous, being close to people. She walked. Alone.

 

Tiring, but safer.

 

It wasn’t fair. It seemed like no time at all had passed before she barely recognised herself at all. One night, as she tried to sleep, huddled in an old shack not far from the road, it happened again. It was a full moon, and as she screamed and clawed at the floor, the walls, the door, she felt Ginger slip away, into the dark and the animal emerge.

 

Some days later, Ginger awoke again, wet, bloody and freezing, sobbing in the woods. The half-eaten carcass of a deer was close by.

 

She was sick repeatedly, but eventually her hunger and exhaustion won out and she weakly approached the body, and forced herself to eat.

 

Ginger swore to herself that was it. No more. Never again. She’d fight it harder next time. Somehow.

 

But it didn’t matter.

 

…

 

There was an argument outside the office now, Ginger noticed, vaguely. She was more concerned about other things though.

 

Like the hairs on the back of her hand. The way her nails had started to stretch, and sharpen. The fact her hair had almost doubled in length, tumbling over her shoulders, streaked with a silvery white.

 

She wasn’t winning.

 

Ginger was breathing heavily, biting down on the cuffs, ragged and choppy. Her teeth felt different too. Less like teeth and more like…say…fangs.

 

The cuffs wouldn’t hold her for long. The office door wouldn’t bar her for long. The others outside would be dead in seconds. She’d cut through them like a knife through butter. She’d kill them all.

 

And Brigitte would leave her.

 

It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to kill. She didn’t want to change. But she had no choice, she couldn’t stop this. She’d never been able to stop this.

 

Without it, she’d never have found Brigitte at all…

 

…

 

It had taken Ginger a few months to realise the transformations were regular. Coming with the full moon. It brought to mind Brigitte’s mad ideas about werewolves and lycanthropy, and how she’d shot them down out of hand, from the start.

 

Felt like a bit of a fucking tit now, really.

 

There was a time when her greatest fear had been cramps, PMS, bleeding monthly, ‘woman issues’.

 

Fucking hell, that had been the life.

 

Not she spent half each month warping into some kind of predatory creature, barely human, and three days on four legs killing and eating the local wildlife. Including household pets, if it felt like it.

 

It had taken her a bit longer to realise it was taking her somewhere. The closer she got to the full moon, the less she thought like Ginger, the more she seemed to gain some sort of…sense of direction.

 

Her senses themselves changed. She noticed things, sounds, smells, tastes, far more. And certain smells and flavours brought out strong…impressions. Specifically strong impressions of her sister, Brigitte.

 

She wanted to find her sister more than anything, did her other half know that?

 

Should she be trying to find Brigitte at all when her other half wanted to kill and eat most things she came into contact with?

 

As far as Brigitte knew, she was dead.

 

When she thought about Brigitte, it produced a kind of hunger, deep inside her. But it wasn’t the same as before. It wasn’t an urge she recognised, like she had come to with the beast’s need to rip, and tear, and kill. But it was need still, and yearning, and it pulled her on.

 

Her route was hardly direct. Brigitte either wasn’t in any hurry or wasn’t going anywhere specific. Ginger had spent a year almost, bouncing from town to town across Ontario.

 

A year.

 

She prodded the fire she’d made with a stick, depressed. Smoke drifted up through the trees above.

 

A year.

 

Alone, without anybody. Transforming into a bloodthirsty creature every month. Staying away from people as much as she could.

 

Happy birthday, Ginger, happy birthday Brigitte, she thought, bitterly.

 

She was so lonely.

 

It wasn’t as if she or Brigitte had ever worried about making a lot of friends, but they’d had each other. She’d had Brigitte. She’d always had Brigitte.

 

She’d always…made sure of it.

 

_“You wrecked everything for me that isn't about you.”_

 

And she’d made sure Brigitte had shared the consequences of her actions.

 

_“Now I am you.”_

Deep down, Ginger hoped that was never true. Brigitte was better than that.

 

It had occurred to her, with nothing but time to think on her hands for the last year, that she hadn’t always been a good sister to Brigitte. That she’d used her and coerced her as much as Brigitte had wilfully stuck with her, over the years.

 

Ginger thought more and more about their time together, growing up, their memories, and she found herself not always as comfortable with the Ginger she had been as she used to be.

 

The Pact, for starters…

 

_“You swore we'd go together, one way or another.”_

_“When we were eight.”_

 

It used to just be their thing. Something that tied them together, on top of everything else. Where other siblings fought and squabbled, they always came together, formed ranks against anything in their way.

 

_“Out by sixteen or dead in this scene, but together forever.”_

 

But now it just made her feel hollow inside. Made her feel stupid.

 

_“C’mon, B. Together forever.”_

_“United against life as we know it.”_

She missed Brigitte.

 

…

 

Ginger gripped the pipe to hard her hands went white. Her claws scraping painfully against the metal.

 

She was losing control.

 

Her body was shaking now, and she could hear the heartbeat of every stupid frightened idiot in the warehouse outside. She could feel their nervous, quick pulses, she could _fucking taste their-_

 

“Fuck.” She snarled, trying to think about something…anything else.

 

If one of them picked now to check up on her…

 

“Fuck.” She hissed, banging her head against the wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

 

She had to hold on. She didn’t want to kill anybody. She didn’t want Brigitte to leave her again.

 

Inwardly, she wasn’t sure whether Brigitte really meant it, but that was bad enough. There was a time when she knew exactly what Brigitte was thinking, but in three years, her sister had changed. She wasn’t the same little sister she remembered.

 

Brigitte had grown up.

 

The years had made her harder, colder, bitter. The monkshood, her endless fight against the transformations had taken whole parts of her sister away.

 

But she was still Brigitte. She was still Brigitte, in a way that Ginger wasn’t really herself anymore.

 

_“I said I'd die for you!”_

_“No. You said you'd die with me. Cause you had nothing better to do.”_

Maybe that was for the best, considering some of her past choices.

 

And her own, complex, troubling, not-entirely sisterly feelings for Brigitte aside, she still loved her. She always would…

 

…

 

A few months later, she’d picked up the scent of the other werewolf. It had been pretty clear that it wasn’t Brigitte.

 

A few months more and she had realised, with alarm, it was following Brigitte too. It was familiar. But different.

 

One night, she came up on an old lumber camp, a few miles outside of a small town. It looked pretty abandoned, but it definitely didn’t feel like it.

 

Something was here, and it was driving her haywire.

 

She stalked into the middle of the place and decided to skip the sneaking around bit.

 

“Alright, who the fuck are you?” She snarled, glancing around.

 

“That you Fitz?” Someone emerged from a dilapidated cabin. “Thought it was. I’d recognise the smell on you anywhere after you-”

 

She recalled Brigitte’s voice, scolding her.

 

_“You gave it to Jason. You had unprotected sex and you infected him.”_

 

“Spare me the memory, McCardy.” Ginger turned to face him, irritably. “You weren’t that good.”

 

“Bitch.”

 

“Cave-boy.”

 

Jason looked rough. His hair was longer, wild and tangled. And his skin was patchy, marked and scarred. He looked more animal than human.

 

“The fuck are you doing out here?” She snarled.

 

“It’s a funny thing Fitz, but I’m following another werewolf, know anything about that?” Jason sniggered, twitchy, jumpy. “And she’s givin’ off these…these serious vibes, know what I mean? Like, I wanna-”

 

“Back off, McCardy.” Ginger stepped forward, clenching her hands into fists.

 

“Hey, I mean, there’s nothin’ you can do. But I’m a hot-blooded male, this is…I mean, it’s driving me crazy.”

 

“Stay away from her.” Ginger barked.

 

Jason grinned, then laughed.

 

“Oh man, I wasn’t sure, but, but it is Brigitte isn’t it? It’s your freak of a sister.” Jason laughed again. “It’s funny, she was always just a nothing, quiet, weird little thing. Not worth a look, but now she’s just giving off these…I don’t know, it’s like she’s in heat or somethin’ Fitz, and I am craving-”

 

“She’s mine!” Ginger lashed out, striking him across the face.

 

He pulled himself upright quickly, rolling his shoulders.

 

“You can feel it too, can’t you?” He sneered, working his jaw.

 

“No.” Ginger replied.

 

Yes, she thought.

 

“The wolf wants her, doesn’t it?” Jason smirked.

 

_“You know, we're almost not even related anymore.”_

 

“No.”

 

Yes, she thought. She’d realised it, some months earlier.

 

“It doesn’t care that she’s your sister.” He chuckled. “Oh man, that’s so freaky, it’s so you. You two always were stuck together.”

 

_“You love it. Should come for the ride. A little scratch. Swap some juice. We'll be our own pack, like before. It's so 'us' B.”_

 

“Shut up.” She growled.

 

Her other half, the wolf, had been trailing Brigitte alright. But it wasn’t just so Ginger could find her. It wanted…it wanted..

 

“Whatever, Fitz.” Jason shrugged. “You honestly think I care anymore? I’m a fuckin’ werewolf. I’ve eaten people. I just want to fuck something, and your sister’ll do. She thought she’d cured me, y’know, so much for that, the stupid little dweeb.”

 

“What?” Ginger asked, sharply.

 

“Stuck a needle of some shit in my damn neck, back in Bailey Downs two years ago. It almost made things normal for a while. Didn’t last though. Oh well.” He shrugged again.

 

The monkshood wasn’t a cure.

 

Brigitte had no cure.

 

It wasn’t as if Ginger hadn’t begun to suspect something was wrong, after nearly two years. Brigitte still smelled like a werewolf. She was still following something that was definitely Brigitte, and definitely a werewolf. But she’d still hoped that maybe there was…some other reason, some other explanation…

 

It wasn’t a cure. Brigitte had spent two years only delaying the curse. Slowing it down.

 

“Look, I won’t hurt her…I think.” Jason said, smiling. “Just want to have a go. You can always go next?” He chuckled.

 

Ginger stared at him for a second. Her blood boiled.

 

“What?” Jason asked, defensively.

 

Ginger leapt at him with a snarl and they went down, kicking, punching, clawing and biting. They rolled across the clearing until Jason threw her off, through a cabin door. He charged at her but she was faster, already back on her feet and tackling him through the cabin wall. She pummelled him repeatedly until her fist was raw and bleeding and his face a pulpy, bloody mess.

 

“Stay the fuck away from my sister, McCardy.” She hissed, grabbing him by the shoulders and hurling him back into the cabin.

 

The whole structure collapsed on top of him, as Ginger stumbled backward in a cloud of dust and debris.

 

She stared at the ruins for a moment, before turning toward town.

 

She’d find Brigitte first, before McCardy, and before her other half, and she’d be damned if she let anyone touch her ever again.

 

…

 

Ginger was going pretty wild caged up in the office. Nobody was even looking in on her, they probably didn’t care.

 

Judging by the smells, some of them were getting high on their own fucking product.

 

She felt like she could have used some of it. She needed to calm down, or she was going to lose it.

 

Sometimes she didn’t think Brigitte truly understood how hard it was to fight it, the animal instinct, the sheer hunger, its power. Brigitte had, but her sister had a degree of self-control bordering on the fucking legendary.

 

She’d had to, growing up with Ginger.

 

Ginger had gotten pretty used to coasting by getting what she wanted. When she’d been bitten, she’d used the curse to get even more of what she thought she wanted.

 

Sex. Affection. Attention.

 

Blood. Death. Carnage.

 

Maybe this was the price. For her…sins…

 

…

 

Ginger raged and screamed in frustration, taking out her anger on the rock face.

 

She clawed at it, punched it, hit it, kicked it until her hands were raw and bruised and bleeding, and then she carried on.

 

She couldn’t control it. It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t control it.

 

She hurled up the contents of her stomach violently, leaning against the rock, exhausted. Blood and…and other things.

 

The torn and…half-eaten bodies of the hikers were behind her.

 

Ginger cried, her body racked by great heaving sobs. It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t wanted this. She hadn’t. She hadn’t.

 

It wasn’t even the first time.

 

She’d tried her best to stay away from people, but…but she had to find Brigitte. Each time she got close, close enough to have a chance of finding her, she was always close to the edge, to the full moon. There was never enough time. It wasn’t fair.

 

It wasn’t fucking fair!

 

Every time, she’d changed in the town Brigitte had been in. She remembered sparse images. The wolf had stalked her sister, hunted her. Wanted her for…

 

Ginger vomited again.

 

It wanted her for…

 

It had taken her love for her sister and twisted the fuck out of it. She wasn’t even sure anymore what that meant.

 

After three years, it was getting hard to tell where Ginger ended and the beast began. Both wanted Brigitte. And the reasons were…were getting confused.

 

The only thing she cared about was Brigitte, the only thing she was interested in was finding her. It was her only goal, her only reason for not just finding some way to end her miserable fucking existence.

 

Brigitte had moved on again. On the run for real now. Ginger was hardly surprised. She thought she was being stalked by a fucking monster.

 

Maybe she was.

 

Last night, the wolf had gone after Brigitte again. It had found her in another shitty motel. The odour of monkshood had been so strong it had kept her away for a moment, until that other guy appeared, with the car.

 

Neither she or the beast had liked that. They’d torn the poor guy to pieces. Ripped him from the car while Brigitte screamed. But they’d lost her in the cold streets.

 

She spared a glance for the mauled bodies behind her and retched again.

 

She’d picked up Jason’s trail again too. He was getting close. Too close.

 

Next time, she’d kill him.

 

Ginger pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, her stomach still feeling like shit. She tried to steady her resolve for scavenging through the hiker’s belongings for things she could use.

 

She’d be faster next time.

 

Nothing else mattered, only Brigitte. Nothing else.

 

Just Brigitte.

 

…

 

Couldn’t let herself sleep. She might wake up as something else.

 

Ginger struck her head against the wall repeatedly, trying to stave off the urge she felt to sleep. Her body felt like it was burning, and her bones ached, like they were trying to…change shape.

 

Fucking hell, she would have killed for some of that pot right now.

 

She chewed on the metal cuffs, tense as all hell. She was dimly grateful they hadn’t just used rope or tape, especially if…if…

 

Ginger couldn’t do this. She was going to change. And she’d either kill every person in the building, or be shot dead trying, like some mad fucking animal.

 

It wasn’t fair. She was trying. She’d tried. And Brigitte would never know. She was all out of chances, and she’d die with her sister thinking she was the bloodthirsty monster she’d only known her as since that last night in Bailey Downs.

 

She didn’t want Brigitte to remember her like that. She didn’t want to be something she had nightmares about, like she had. Some twisted ghost of who she’d been, plaguing her mind. She didn’t deserve that. Brigitte hadn’t done anything to deserve any of this.

 

She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, clinging to the last threads of who she was.

 

It wasn’t fucking fair.

 

_“Don’t leave me!”_

Her eyes snapped open, looking around frantically. That had been Brigitte’s voice, she was…so sure of it, but there was nothing. Nobody. Just her.

 

Her breathing was ragged, shaky. She closed her eyes again.

 

_“Look at me.”_

That was her own voice. Tinged with worry, out of breath, but it was her.

 

Ginger slowly tried to calm herself, slow her frantic breathing.

 

She started to…see things. Like a memory, half-forgotten, buried deep in her mind. Fragments, images, sounds, faces.

 

_There was snow. A forest. There was Ginger, and Brigitte, the ones from her dreams. They were huddled close, on the floor. Brigitte’s foot was caught in a bear trap. She was in pain, terrified._

 

_“Count to one hundred, and before you do it, I’ll be back. Alright?”_

_Brigitte nodded, hesitantly._

_“One, two, three…” Ginger began, then hurried off._

Ginger opened her eyes, momentarily confused. She’d felt as if she’d been asleep, almost, but no time had passed.

 

_“…four, five…six…”_

 

She heard Brigitte’s voice, continuing the count, her voice wary and pained.

 

Ginger looked at the door.

 

She either hadn’t had enough sleep lately, she was going crazy, or…or this was really happening. These dreams…meant something. Ginger hadn’t the first idea how or why that would be so, but lacking any other ideas…

 

Brigitte was coming for her. She believed that. She didn’t know what else she believed, but she trusted her sister.

 

“…seven, eight, nine…ten…” She began to count.


	9. Unleashed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was that time of the month, for Brigitte. And everything was in her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist using the subtitle of Ginger Snaps 2. I always felt like Brigitte never really got to live up to it, in the film, so I tried giving her a little more room to breathe in the finale to my own little sequel of sorts.
> 
> Alternate title: Brigitte Snaps

Brigitte ducked around the alleyway. The police car rolled by slowly, sirens momentarily lighting up the dark alley before it passed on.

 

She took out the knife and cut into her palm again, wiping the blood on the brick wall beside her, before tucking the knife in her belt behind her back again.

 

Brigitte jogged on down the short alley, coming out on a street on the other side. Hoskin’s diner was at the far end. Mike’s store, where they’d no doubt taken Ginger, was a few streets past that, but she wasn’t heading that way. Not yet.

 

The street was clear, so she ran quickly across, disappearing into another alley.

 

The night was clear above. Starry. And the moon was full. She could feel it, like the sun burning the back of her neck on a hot day. She pulled her hood further over her face.

 

Her breath was visible in great clouds in the freezing night air, but she couldn’t feel it at all by this point.

 

Brigitte broke into a sprint, relishing the speed, the intensity, the energy she felt. It was a kind of high, euphoria.

 

It was tempting to embrace the sheer…power, she felt, coursing through her fully.

 

The hunger was always there though. Insistent, craving, bubbling just under the surface. An ever present reminder of the narrow line she’d forced herself to walk, had to walk.

 

For Ginger.

 

She took out the knife and opened her palm. The cut was already healing. Too fast.

 

She sliced again, slapping her hand against the nearest wall, leaving another spatter of blood and tucked the knife back in her belt, running on.

 

Ghost. She had to find Ghost.

 

Brigitte doubted the girl had moved on. She didn’t seem to have the sense for that. Too fixated on her, on getting her way.

 

Bit like Ginger had been, sometimes, back home.

 

Her sister hadn’t been crazy though, or dangerously petty, or ready to murder strangers just to get what she…

 

…well not completely. Not all the time. Not-

 

Brigitte cut off that train of thought, it felt like she was getting derailed.

 

The point was, Ghost must have found her somehow, must have got here somehow. Maybe she had a way out of town, too.

 

Brigitte paused at the end of the alley, peering around the side. A crowd of people were hanging around outside a bar, being questioned by more cops. They were flashing a picture, it looked like.

 

She waited, as patiently as she could.

 

Her hand moved to the pocket of her jacket. She felt the syringe there, filled with monkshood, reassuringly.

 

Enough for her.

 

…or Ginger.

 

She could smell Ghost. Sense her. Where she’d been, where she was. Like a trail in the air. She could practically…see her, almost. Brigitte had never really explored the effect the curse had on her abilities, her senses, her body, for the most part. She had to admit, it was…something else.

 

While she waited, pulled out the knife and cut her palm again, smearing her blood on the corner of the wall.

 

Even useless old Norman could have followed a trail like the one she’d been leaving. It shouldn’t be giving Jason any trouble.

 

Brigitte was counting on it.

 

The police were still there, and she was wasting time. She bit her lip.

 

Fuck it.

 

She walked across the road, as calmly, as nondescript as she could and turned the opposite direction of the cops and the crowd. Had to put as much distance between them as she could before-

 

“Excuse me, young lady?” A voice called from behind her.

 

-before that.

 

Brigitte broke into a run.

 

“Hey!”

 

Heavy, rushing boots hit the pavement behind her.

 

She veered sharply into another narrow alleyway, barely more than a gap between two buildings this time. Ghost’s imprint was strong in her mind, she was close.

 

There was a stack of storage crates at the far end. She slipped through, tearing the pile down behind her, blocking the way in a loud crash. Annoyed, shouting voices took up at the other end of the alley. Somewhere in the distance she heard sirens from the other police car.

 

She ran out onto the road, her heart thumping in her chest and her legs burning with every thumping step. There was another motel at the end of the road, on the edge of town. Ghost was there, she had to be.

 

Brigitte cut across the mostly-empty car park. There were a few vehicles, nice ones. She was vaguely aware the motel itself looked nicer than the one she’d been living in. Ghost had money, then.

 

She pushed the irritating thought aside and tried to focus. Narrow down where Ghost was. Narrower.

 

Her gaze veered up to a room on the edge of the building, second floor.

 

Without stopping, Brigitte pushed herself on, faster. She vaulted onto a dumpster and jumped upward, grasping onto the railing of the balcony on the second floor, scrambling up and over.

 

She was panting heavily, but still continued, walking toward the far end. Again she pulled out the knife, sliced her rapidly healing palm and wiped blood on the nearest wall. Then, still using the knife, she thrust it into the gap between the door and the frame, forcing and levering the lock until it swung open easily.

 

“Don’t run, don’t shout, and for fucks sake just listen.” Brigitte snarled, stalking in, bloody knife still in hand. She pulled down her hood.

 

Ghost stared, wide-eyed from her seat on the bed. The TV was on across from her.

 

“B…Brigitte?” Ghost stammered, in shock.

 

Fair reaction, considering what she probably looked like right now. Some freakish blend of animal and human.

 

“I said shut up.” Brigitte snapped.

 

Ghost was staring worriedly at something and Brigitte realised she was still waving the knife around. She let her arm fall to her side.

 

Time was draining away, in the back of her mind. Had to keep this short.

 

“Mike, the local drugs guy, has Ginger. I have to save her.” She explained, curtly. “…or them, if she turns.” She added, grimly.

 

Ghost seemed to settle, more at ease. She tugged at the collar of her blue sweater distractedly, attempting a grin.

 

“Well, I’m sure we can come up with some sort of deal.” Ghost smiled. “All you had to do was-”

 

“I’m not here for this shit, I don’t have time for it.” Brigitte interrupted, feeling her temper fray. “You have a car, right? Be on the other side of town in half an hour with it.”

 

“I’m not just going to let you get away again.” Ghost argued, sliding off the bed and getting to her feet.

 

Brigitte wrestled with the near-insatiable urge to rip the girl’s throat out with her fucking hands.

 

“You want me?” Brigitte hissed, raising the knife again. “You want to be like me? You want to know what it’s like to be me?” She cut her palm again, blood dropped onto the floor.

 

“Brigitte, what-”

 

“Give me your hand, I’ll show you what it’s fucking like.” Brigitte stepped forward, holding out her bleeding palm.

 

“Brigitte!” Ghost pulled back, horrified.

 

It was cruel, scaring her like this. Brigitte knew it. It was cold. Calculating. It was…cruel.

 

But she didn’t have time for this. And maybe Ghost would learn something about herself. About Brigitte. About what she really was.

 

Ghost quivered slightly, eyes going from her bloody hand, to the knife, to her face.

 

“You. Car. Edge of town, past Mike’s place. Half an hour.” Brigitte snarled, through her fangs. “Understand?”

 

Ghost nodded, reluctantly, her face pale.

 

Her eye was briefly caught by a crowbar resting against a cupboard by the door. She grabbed it.

 

She noticed Ghost was watching her carefully, but kept glancing back at the TV. Brigitte looked at it for the first time since she’d come in, and hesitated.

 

It was the news. An interview. A woman and a man together, talking to the camera.

 

_“Of course we hope it’s true, don’t we Henry?”_

_“Of course, dear.”_

_“They’re our little girls, no matter what has happened, or what people or the police might think they’re involved in. They’re my little girls. I just want them back, I want them to come home.”_

 

“Mum…” Brigitte murmured, before she could stop herself.

 

Ghost was watching her, looking uneasy. Brigitte frowned again, glaring sharply at the girl.

 

“I will find you, if you aren’t there. I will always find you.” She bared her teeth, then pulled up her hood as she backed out of the room. “If anything goes wrong, I will find you. If anything happens to Ginger…” A rumbling growl escaped her throat.

 

“I’ll be there.” Ghost said, quickly.

 

Brigitte shut the door, putting the knife away. That had actually been the easier part.

 

Gripping the railing, she dropped over the side, landing on the concrete with a thud. Now she had to make sure Jason was following her, and get him to Mike’s-

 

“…rrrrrrfffffitttzzzzz…” Something growled from the shadow under the walkway behind her.

 

Well, that narrowed it down a little.

 

She could hear his ragged breathing. Feel the heat of his breath right behind her. Hell, she could smell him, but that had nothing to do with her heightened senses.

 

“Want something to chew on?” She asked, half-turning, and smashed the crowbar into the side of his head.

 

Jason howled in pain and she ran.

 

Her plan, what little there was of it, was stupid, and dangerous. People were going to die.

 

That didn’t make her happy. But there was no other way.

 

Ginger had enough blood on her hands. Maybe, Brigitte thought…maybe, it was time she had some of her own.

 

She didn’t want to kill.

 

But she’d do anything for her sister. She knew that. Brigitte had always known that.

 

Jason had recovered and she could hear him behind her, keeping pace. Panting and growling as he half-ran, half-crawled after her.

 

The sirens were still going, cutting through the night all around.

 

This was probably more action than ‘Moose City’ had seen since they built it.

 

Brigitte turned sharply down the road toward the middle of town. She couldn’t run all the way around the outside, even though it was probably safer. Her lungs would probably burst.

 

If she was careful though, maybe-

 

A police car pulled out of the next corner, right in front of her. She couldn’t stop.

 

“Fuckfuckfuck.” She hissed frantically.

 

“FFRRRTTZZZ!” Jason growled from behind her.

 

She poured on a last burst of speed and vaulted the hood of the car, sliding across it. Behind her, she heard a metallic thud and scraping as Jason landed on it, scrambling across.

 

“What the fuck was that?!” She heard someone shout, as the men got out of the car.

 

Brigitte pushed on, her tired body screaming for her to stop, her heart pounding.

 

She was pretty sure she’d never run so much in her life.

 

Hoskin’s diner was at the end of the road. She was nearly there. As she got closer, she saw the broken windows out front. Damaged by Jason.

 

Her fault.

 

She passed the diner, taking the corner without pausing, latching onto a streetlamp for balance.

 

Jason snarled angrily from behind her. Close. So close.

 

People were going to die, and it was going to be on her head. She wasn’t sure she was really ready for that, but she had to be. There was no going back.

 

She’d let Tyler die, killed by the werewolf she hadn’t known to be Ginger, because of Ghost’s lies. Tyler was a shit, but she’d been lied to.

 

At least this time, it was her choice.

 

Small comfort.

 

Mike’s store was at the end of the road.

 

“Come on McCardy, you hormonal sack of shit!” She yelled over her shoulder. “You want me?”

 

Jason howled.

 

Brigitte hauled a couple of bins over behind her. She heard Jason crash into them.

 

She had made it.

 

The door was closed and the lights were off, but they were in there. She lifted the crowbar and hurled it overarm, straight through the window. Before it had even smashed, she forced herself on once more, leaping through the window in a shower of glass and tumbling into the storefront.

 

“Shit.” She hissed, dragging herself across  the floor through the wreckage.

 

Shards of jagged glass were buried in her arms and legs. Her hands were slick with blood as she pulled herself along. With difficulty, and biting her tongue against the pain, she managed to pull her jacket off, brushing off most of the glass she’d picked up with it.

 

Brigitte forced herself to her feet, fumbling for the crowbar in the dark. She tried to brush more glass from her now torn jeans, picking up more scratches and cuts on her hands for her efforts. Her eyes adjusted unnaturally quickly and she found the door leading to the storage unit behind the shop.

 

She could hear Jason still following behind her, on the street outside.

 

Without thinking, she threw open the door to the back.

 

“Ginger!” She yelled.

 

She had about a second to glimpse Mike and about six other guys, some with guns, standing around, before one of them saw her and fired at her in a panic. She threw herself back, but not before the bullet tore through her arm.

 

“You fuckin’ idiot!” She heard Mike yelling, as she pressed herself behind the door.

 

She pressed a hand to the wound. Wasn’t deep. Bullet scraped the skin, cutting through her hoodie. Lot of blood. So much.

 

Making it hard to think. The blood. The fear and panic from the men inside. Muddled her brain. Her thinking and the wolf’s thinking jostled for position.

 

She peered around, hesitantly. They had fanned out, with Mike stood behind the guy in the middle. The Den, Mike’s office, was closed behind them. Ginger had to be in there.

 

She wasn’t howling or scratching at the door though, still had time.

 

As she turned back toward the broken window, she saw Jason lumbering carefully through.

 

“Fffffffiiitttzzzzz…” He grumbled.

 

She peered back through the door.

 

“Come out Brigitte. We can…talk about this.” Mike called. “Sure, you owe me a lot of money, but maybe we can come up with some other way you can work it off.” He sniggered.

 

“I’m here for my sister!” Brigitte called back, sounding more confident than she felt.

 

“I guess that depends on what you’re ready to do for me, don’t it?”

 

Mike’s gang laughed to themselves.

 

She clutched the crowbar tightly. Jason was getting closer. Mike’s crew started to edge toward the door.

 

Her eyes fixed on the long light fixture in the back room. It flickered occasionally.

 

Brigitte took a deep breath.

 

She stepped out into the doorway quickly, and threw the crowbar again, as hard as she could at the light. It smashed in a shower of sparks and glass, bathing the entire room in darkness. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she fancied she could practically feel Jason’s breath and she threw herself forward onto the floor.

 

Mike and his crew fired their guns in panic, illuminating the room briefly. Brigitte had about a second to see Jason bounding over her head and into the room, before the black swept in like a tide, and the yelling and screaming started.

 

Sporadic gunshots chipped and ricocheted off the walls, and she could see Jason, lost in the throes of his own bloodlust, in the middle of the chaos.

 

“What the hell is that?!” Somebody yelled.

 

“Fuck knows, shoot it!” Mike cursed.

 

Brigitte dragged herself through the middle, trying to avoid the confusing brawl raging around her. She patted the syringe in her pocket again, reassured by its presence. The smell of blood was thick in the air now, tinged with…marijuana. Made her feel sluggish and tense at the same time. It was intoxicating.

 

“Ginger!” She called again.

 

She picked herself up off the floor. Mike’s crew were in a panic, none of them sure what exactly was moving amongst them, snarling, clawing, scratching and biting. Somebody grabbed her shoulder suddenly.

 

“I got ‘er!”

 

Brigitte drove her elbow back as hard as she could, roughly where the guy’s face should have been, resulting in a violent crunch that sent a bolt of pain shooting down her arm. She wasn’t sure whether her elbow or his jaw was worse off, but he let go, crying out sharply as he fell away.

 

The door to the office was ahead. Closed still. Around her screams and noise and blood. Made it hard to think.

 

The hunger was getting to her. The smell, the salty taste of it was in the air, everywhere. Made her skin itch.

 

She palmed the syringe in her pocket again. Forced herself to think. Find Ginger. Get out.

 

Brigitte took a run at the door, ignoring the aches, pains and multiple wounds she’d picked up over the night, and crashed through it, almost pulling it off its hinges.

 

“Ginger!” She looked around, frantically, finally seeing Ginger cuffed to some pipes by Mike’s desk. She was slumped against them, looking worse for wear. Her hair was practically white. And…she was counting to herself.

 

“…ninety-eight…ninety-nine…” Ginger looked up, bewildered. “…Brigitte?”

 

Brigitte stopped in her tracks when she saw the swollen, black bruises around her eye, and her mouth.

 

“You shoulda’ seen the other guy.” Ginger smirked, when she realised what she was staring at.

 

“Hold on, I’m-” Brigitte started, pulling out the syringe of monkshood.

 

“That’s about fucking enough.” Mike snarled from behind her.

 

She felt something heavy clout her on the back of the head. A hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her stumbling backwards, against the wall. She dropped the syringe.

 

“What the fuck is that thing?” Mike demanded, pointing his gun at her.

 

“Kid we went to school with.” Ginger grinned, stupidly.

 

Someone else yelled in the dark behind them, followed by another gunshot. Mike turned at the sound and Brigitte started to move, but the gun pushed harder into her head.

 

Mike turned back, glaring at her, then his eyes drifted toward Ginger, as if he’d noticed her for the first time. His expression twisted in confusion and disgust.

 

“What…happened to you?” He spat, staring in surprise. “You look…like…like…”

 

“That time of the month?” Ginger shrugged.

 

Brigitte snorted, despite herself. Mike turned back to her, peering at her more closely now.

 

She went for broke and pulled her hood down. She’d been wondering if she looked as rough as she felt.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Mike stepped back, aghast.

 

That bad then. Oh well, Brigitte mused.

 

“Fuck me, B.” Ginger whistled.

 

“Thanks, Ginger.” Brigitte shot her a dark look.

 

“Sorry.” Ginger grinned, weakly.

 

“What…the fuck are you two?” Mike waved the gun between the two of them, inadvertently pushing the office door shut as he backed into it.

 

The wolf was raging to break free of the cage she’d built around it. It smelled fear. It smelled blood.

 

“Lycanthrope.” Brigitte replied, tersely.

 

“Means werewolf.” Ginger added, helpfully.

 

Brigitte clenched and unclenched her hands. Mike’s panicked heartbeat was almost thunder in her ears.

 

“You’re fucking freaks, that thing out there is a freak, you’re all freaks!” Mike yelled, frantically. “Fuck this, I’m just gonna shoot your freak of a sister, you, and then-” He ranted, aiming his gun at Ginger.

 

Brigitte moved before her thoughts had even caught up with her body. Mike tried to aim at her instead, but he was too late to get a clear shot. He fired in a panic. She felt the bullet clip her side but she pushed on, crashing into him. Her arm pinned against his throat, her other hand grabbing the wrist of his hand holding the gun.

 

“You’re going to what?” She snarled, teeth grinding together.

 

He thrashed against her grip but it was useless. She gripped his wrist and slammed it into the wall repeatedly, squeezing tighter and tighter until he cried out, dropping the gun. Something in his hand snapped.

 

“Let me…go…” Mike rasped for breath, scrabbling with his free hand at her arm.

 

She removed her arm just long enough to close her other hand around his throat, hard. Mike slammed back into the wall, something fell out of his pocket and clattered across the floor. He coughed and flailed, uselessly.

 

Brigitte increased the pressure. She was riding on adrenaline, anger. Burning fumes. The second bullet hadn’t just gone through cleanly. Her side felt numb, and her clothes felt wet, sticky. She was losing blood fast.

 

“Brigitte!” Ginger yelled, rattling her cuffs.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, the other Ginger strolled into view, leaning on the wall lazily beside Mike. Wearing a despairingly clingy, short dress. Her imagination was warped.

 

_“Yeah, Brigitte.”_ Ginger smirked. _“Go for it.”_

 

“Wasn’t enough that you took my sister, you had to hit her?” Brigitte growled, pressing her face close to his. “Enjoy it did you?”

 

_“You know he did.”_ Ginger egged her on. _“Make the fucker pay. Take something away from him.”_

 

“I can’t…breathe…” Mike coughed.

 

His neck was exposed. His veins stuck out. She felt like she could…see it, the blood, pumping. Fucking hell, she was so hungry.

 

She sniffed at him. Mike’s face contorted in terror.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Mike cried.

 

_“You’re hungry, B.”_ Ginger tilted her head, sympathetically. _“So hungry…and so tired.”_

“Brigitte, don’t do this!” Ginger yelled from behind her, tugging on her cuffs.

 

Brigitte felt herself slipping. She bared her teeth, now fangs, and leaned closer. She could just make out teeth marks from where Ginger had bitten him earlier. Fitting.

 

_“Let me take care of everything, B.”_ Ginger whispered into her ear, pressing close. Brigitte could swear she almost felt her breath. _“Just take it easy.”_

“Easy.” Brigitte sneered.

 

“No!” Mike cried, as she opened her mouth.

 

“Brigitte, you aren’t me!” Ginger insisted. “You aren’t me! You aren’t!”

 

Brigitte hesitated. Beside her, Ginger screamed.  Behind her, Ginger pleaded.

 

She was hanging by a thread. She could feel it unwinding.

 

The door suddenly shook. A clawed hand crashed through, grasping for anything.

 

Brigitte had a glimpse of the room outside. It was still dark, but it looked like Jason had finished playing with his…food.

 

_“Don’t ignore me!”_ Ginger ranted, but she sounder further away somehow.

 

Brigitte pushed through the haze of want and hunger, focusing everything she had left on the new threat. She tossed Mike across the office, sending him flying into the wall and landing in a heap.

 

“Ffffiittzzzz.” Jason growled from outside.

 

He charged into the door again, splintering it utterly.

 

“I am so fucking sick of you following me around McCardy.” Brigitte cracked her knuckles and dug her heels into the floor.

 

Jason struggled through the wreckage. He was more wolf than human now. The tattered remnants of his clothes mostly gone, his body twisted in shape, his face stretched, long, with a dog-like muzzle.

 

“Bbrrttcchh.” He growled, loping forward.

 

“Dick.” Brigitte retorted, then threw herself at him.

 

The two of them cartwheeled out of the office, punching, clawing and grabbing at one another. She must have taken him by surprise because Jason’s efforts to stop her were confused, sloppy. Or maybe he was just more tired than she was.

 

Brigitte was dimly aware of the bodies around them. What was left of Mike’s crew. She wanted to be sick when she felt the hunger rise again.

 

She channelled that into more anger, as she managed to pin Jason beneath her and tried to mercilessly pound his wolfish face into paste.

 

Brigitte didn’t know much about fighting, but operated on the assumption that the more she hit him, the less he could hit back.

 

It felt good hitting something that didn’t hit back.

 

He was howling, but she kept hitting. Blood and…pieces covered her fist, spattered across her face. She clenched her teeth and kept hitting.

 

She was so angry. She didn’t even know why anymore.

 

“You…fucking..sack…of…shit…” She spat, striking again and again between each word.

 

Jason snarled, trying to bite her fist as it came down. She struck him across the face with her other fist. His clawed hand suddenly came up and raked her side, where Mike had shot her. The bleeding had stopped, her healing being at its peak during the full moon, but the pain was shattering.

 

She screamed, rolling off of Jason and clutching her side, now soaked with blood again.

 

Jason recovered, slowly, crawling on all fours now. What was left of his human half was gone, leaving behind a rasping, wounded, maddened animal.

 

At least he wasn’t just trying to breed with her anymore, she thought, briefly.

 

Jason lumbered toward her, limping, clearly hurt. Brigitte struggled backward, trying to make space to breathe. She felt herself catch on something when her belt got stuck and remembered the knife.

 

She reached for it, cautiously.

 

Jason…or whatever he was now, closed in. His jaws hung open, dripping blood and saliva. He sniffed at her, then padded closer.

 

Brigitte propped herself up on her arm and pressed her face up to his, glaring, eye to eye.

 

“Fuck you, McCardy.”

 

“Rrrrrrnggh.” Jason snarled.

 

Brigitte yanked the knife from her belt and buried it in his thick neck.

 

Jason’s clawed hand struck her across the face, sending her sprawling while he barked and yelped sharply, staggering across the room before crashing into a wall and haphazardly curling up in a heap by the metal sliding door at the back.

 

Brigitte fumbled around, her head feeling like someone had hit it with a brick. Repeatedly.

 

The building was finally quiet.

 

Ginger.

 

She dragged herself across the floor, clutching her side. Hand was wet with blood. She’d lost a lot now. Wasn’t sure how much, more than healthy.

 

She had nothing left. Her body was drained. Devoid of energy, coordination. Through the torn sleeves of her hoodie she saw dark hair. Her back hurt too. Spine felt like it wanted to curve into another shape.

 

“Ginger.” She grunted, pulling herself toward the office.

 

Brigitte managed to grab the doorframe, using it and what was left of her strength to pull herself into the office. She dragged herself up against it, managing to get her knees beneath her.

 

Mike wasn’t moving. Wasn’t dead, she could hear him breathing.

 

She looked to where Ginger was…except she wasn’t. The cuffs hung off the pipe, empty. Brigitte looked around, panic rising.

 

“Don’t move.”

 

Ginger knelt down beside her. She had the syringe in her hand.

 

“Ginger. Take it, the monkshood.” Brigitte insisted. She coughed, her voice sounding hoarser, less like herself.

 

Ginger shook her head.

 

“Don’t need it, B.” She smiled, slightly. “You came back for me.”

 

“What else…was I going to do?” Brigitte retorted, coughing again.

 

She looked at her older sister closely. There were strands of red in her hair again. And her eyes were normal. She didn’t look like she was in pain.

 

“You did it.” Brigitte managed, weakly.

 

Ginger glanced at Mike’s unconscious form, and past her into the storage area.

 

“So did you.” Ginger smirked. “Quite a mess, B.”

 

“So am I.” Brigitte conceded. She lifted her hand from her side, coated in red.

 

She was surprised when Ginger pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her own arms around her sister’s back as Ginger leaned into her shoulder.

 

“Sorry about this, B.” Ginger mumbled into her hair.

 

“Wha-” Brigitte started, when a sharp pain shot through her as Ginger stuck the syringe into her shoulder and injected her with the monkshood. “-ffffffuuuuuuck.” She groaned, falling limp in Ginger’s arms.

 

She felt it working through her. Felt it smother the anger, drown the beast. It burned. It hurt. There was pain.

 

But it was Brigitte’s hurt. Brigitte’s pain.

 

“Need to get…to edge of town. Ghost waiting.” She managed, haltingly. “Car.”

 

They tensed as they heard the first police sirens.

 

“Come on.” Ginger pulled her arm over her shoulder and helped her up.

 

Brigitte tried to focus on just walking. Everything else was secondary. Everything else…but…

 

“What…was the counting about?” Brigitte asked, as Ginger helped them get toward the rear entrance.

 

Ginger hit the switch and the metal door scraped upward. Jason lay still, unmoving on the floor. Couldn’t tell if he was dead or not. Brigitte decided she didn’t want to know.

 

“Ginger?” She pressed, as they stumbled outside together.

 

Ginger turned to look at her, with…that expression. The one Brigitte remembered from her dream.

 

“Advice.” Ginger smiled wryly. “From someone we know.”

 

Brigitte rolled her eyes, sighing.

 

“That’s a shit of an answer, Ginge.”

 

“Yeah.” Ginger nodded, nuzzling her ear.

 

Brigitte huffed, irritably, as they limped on down the road, the chorus of sirens closing in behind them.


	10. Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being on the run again is nothing new to Brigitte, but what next? Ginger has ideas.

“How’re you holdin’ up, B?”

 

Brigitte grumbled in reply, as they stumbled slowly down the road. She kept her hand pressed to her side, where she’d been shot. The makeshift bandage they’d made out of Ginger’s torn-up shirt was holding…barely.

 

On the plus side, she’d made it through the night ripping anybody’s throat out with her teeth. On the downside…

 

“Think I’m dying.” Brigitte groaned, warily removing her hand. Still sticky with her blood.

 

Her healing had slowed to normal right in time for Mike to shoot a hole through her side. Typical, really.

 

“You’d better fuckin’ not.” Ginger scoffed, hoisting her up again.

 

The sheer amount of monkshood she’d put in that dose had smothered the hunger, crushed the wolf aching to break free.

 

She’d meant it for Ginger, but…so much for that.

 

“It’s never part of the plan, but…” She groaned, clutching her side again. “…but…plans…never been good with those.”

 

“You and me both, B.” Ginger quipped. “Ghost better be there.” She added, sounding more serious.

 

“I gave her some reasons to be.” Brigitte replied, slowly.

 

Sirens filled the air around them. The black sky was just beginning to give way to the first red tint of morning, in the east.

 

“They’re getting c-”

 

They heard a car, at the end of the road. Moments later they saw the white bonnet of another police car.

 

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Ginger hissed, pulling them to an awkward halt.

 

Brigitte looked around, her eyes stopping on Hoskin’s diner, across the road.

 

“Ginge.” She nodded toward it.

 

“I don’t think he’ll help us, B.”

 

Brigitte thought back to their last meeting, and her own actions for the last month. She’d not given the old man much cause to trust her.

 

And then there was the fact that they looked like rejects from a low-budget horror movie.

 

“We don’t have much choice.” Brigitte replied, turning to her sister.

 

Ginger looked from the car, to her, and back. She muttered something under her breath, before she tightened her hold around Brigitte’s waist and half-dragged, half carried her across the road, coming to a stop outside the diner. None of the lights were on. He might not even be in, after Jason wrecked the place.

 

Ginger knocked on the door hurriedly, then pulled Brigitte’s arm quickly back over her shoulder before she slipped to the floor…again.

 

“Come on, come on…” Her older sister hissed.

 

Brigitte watched the car approaching, slowly. They hadn’t been spotted yet.

 

“Hoskins!” Brigitte muttered, tensely.

 

The door opened suddenly. Hoskins stepped to one side.

 

“Inside.” He ordered, brushing them in and closing the door behind them.

 

Ginger helped her into a seat at one of the tables. Brigitte swatted her off irritably when she tried to check on her wound, but Ginger growled and persevered.

 

Hoskins sat on a table across from them, arms crossed.

 

Outside, the police car rolled by, leaving them behind.

 

“I have t’admit, I thought you were takin’ the piss. About the werewolf thing.” Hoskins said, shrugging slightly. “Till that thing attacked my place. And…seein’ you two now.”

 

“I don’t suppose you’d believe we were just dressing up for a party?” Ginger ventured, peeling aside the torn remnants of her blood-soaked top.

 

“Nah.” Hoskins shook his head, slowly. “Not anymore. Wasn’t a drug problem you had, was it, Brigitte?”

 

She looked up at Hoskins, frowning slightly. Didn’t seem much point in lying anymore.

 

“Not unless you count running short of monkshood and turning into a monster three nights every month.”

 

“Your sister too, I take it?”

 

“I was first. Bitten.” Ginger replied, taking off her jacket and removing what was left of her shirt. “Lucky me.” She quipped, sarcastically.

 

Brigitte found her eyes drawn to her sister’s body, bare but for her grey bra. Ginger caught her eye and half-smiled.

 

“I infected myself.” Brigitte added.

 

“That’s on me.” Ginger tore her shirt into strips, indicating for Brigitte to undo her hoodie and lift her top.

 

“What about the other one?” Hoskins asked.

 

“Jason. My bad too.” Ginger sighed, wearily.

 

“Did you…bite him?” Hoskins asked, half-looking out the windows, watching for more cars.

 

“No, we had sex.” Ginger replied. Brigitte kicked her. “Hey, it was my first…and unfortunately last time!”

 

“Ginger!” Brigitte glowered.

 

Ginger grinned and went back to bandaging her side.

 

“Werewolves…” Hoskins mumbled, shaking his head. “It’d be too much to believe if…”

 

“If the two of us weren’t sitting here, bleeding all over the place and looking like…” Brigitte rambled, pulling down her top and sitting up straight.

 

“Extras from Dog Soldiers?” Ginger ventured.

 

“Something like that.” Brigitte shrugged. She looked outside. The sky was getting lighter. “We’d better get moving.”

 

Ginger nodded, taking her arm and pulling it around her shoulder again, then helped her up, holding her close.

 

“Out the back.” Hoskins led them across the diner, past the counter. He stopped at the door, and turned, looking pensively at the pair of them.

 

“What?” Ginger asked, impatiently.

 

Brigitte tensed, having a feeling what he was going to ask.

 

“Have you…have you killed anyone, Brigitte?” He asked, warily.

 

Brigitte held his gaze, exhaling slowly.

 

“Once, or so I thought.” She glanced at her sister. Ginger smiled weakly. “No.” She shook her head.

 

Hoskins glanced across at Ginger.

 

“I have.” Ginger replied, steadily, unblinking.

 

Hoskins breathed out, slowly, looking tired. He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out. It was money.

 

“Take this. It’s not much.” He shrugged.

 

“I’m not taking your money.” Brigitte snapped, then winced, clutching her side, as the pain flared up again.

 

“Brigitte says ‘thank you’.” Ginger ignored her, taking the money.

 

“Nnrrrr.” Brigitte growled.

 

Hoskins stepped aside, opening the door. Ginger led her out, into the alley. Brigitte brought them to a stop, turning back to Hoskins, but the older man simply closed the door quietly in their faces.

 

Brigitte stared at it for a moment, feeling oddly at a loss.

 

“C’mon, B. We gotta go.” Ginger tugged at her waist.

 

“Yeah.” Brigitte replied, quietly, tearing her eyes from the door, as they hurried on.

 

…

 

The sun was rising, when they finally made it to the edge of town. The sirens hadn’t died down yet, and a light mist had settled in the woods around town, and on the road leading out. There was an old-looking car half-parked on the pavement, facing out of town.

 

“Fuck, she’s actually there.” Ginger hissed. “I owe you five bucks.”

 

“You don’t have five bucks.” Brigitte groaned, dragging herself along with every step.

 

“B, can I borrow five bucks?”

 

Brigitte shot her a dry look. Ginger shrugged, with a slight grin.

 

Ghost was leaning on the window in the driver’s seat. Looked asleep. Ginger brought them to a sudden halt by the door. She had a mischievous look on her face, and grabbed the door.

 

“Ginger, wai-” Brigitte started.

 

Ginger hauled the door open and Ghost tumbled out with a yelp.

 

“Outta the fuckin’ way, gremlin.” Ginger growled, then turned to Brigitte. “Might be a bit late to ask, B, but can you drive? Because turning into a wolf three nights every month and hiking through the middle of buttfuck nowhere didn’t leave me a lot of time to learn.”

 

“I can drive.” Brigitte shrugged her sister off, gripping the side of the car for balance. “…mostly.”

 

“Mostly?” Ginger frowned, dubiously as she moved around to the passenger door.

 

Brigitte stared back.

 

“Mostly.” She nodded.

 

Mostly. Sort of. She’d worked for a courier for a few months, before she’d had to skip town.

 

Again.

 

“Hold on-” Ghost whined, pulling herself to her feet.

 

“No can do, crazy, we’re outta here.” Ginger slipped into the car, slamming the door closed.

 

Brigitte spared the girl a look before struggling awkwardly into the car herself, and shutting the door. She felt her way around, familiarising herself with it as much as she could. It had been a year or so since the last time.

 

Ghost knocked on the window, looking frantic.

 

“You can’t just leave me here!” Ghost pleaded.

 

Brigitte stared straight ahead, hands on the wheel. She turned the ignition.

 

“Watch us, you fuckin’ nut.” Ginger leaned across, glowering.

 

“I haven’t got anything left, please!” Ginger slapped the window again. “Please, Brigitte!”

 

“Fuck off!” Ginger yelled back.

 

Brigitte put her foot on the pedal and slowly pressed down, fighting to ignore the two voices drilling through her skull.

 

The car moved, jolting slightly as she realised she was in the wrong gear.

 

“Shit.” She hissed, correcting it hurriedly, as they drove on.

 

In the rearview mirror she could see Ghost, standing in the road, getting smaller.

 

Ginger sat back, looking pleased with herself. Brigitte glanced over at her, several times, finally catching Ginger’s eye.

 

“I’m not gonna tell you to go back, B.” Ginger shook her head, smirking.

 

Brigitte looked back at the road, frowning.

 

“I know.” She sighed.

 

She pressed the brakes, threw the car into reverse and pulled back. Ghost stepped hurriedly aside as the car scraped to a shuddering halt beside her. Brigitte gripped the wheel tightly, making up her mind.

 

“I wouldn’t.” Ginger shrugged.

 

“I know.” Brigitte replied.

 

She reached back and threw open the back door, without turning around. Ghost clambered in.

 

“What do you say?” Ginger turned to look behind them, smiling with a hint of menace.

 

“Thank you.” Ghost said, warily.

 

Brigitte tapped the accelerator with her foot.

 

“Give me the money, Ginge.”

 

“Oh c’mon, B.” Ginger whined, facing her.

 

“Just give me the money.”

 

Ginger rolled her eyes and handed it over. Brigitte took the notes and passed it back without looking.

 

“Next…anywhere we find, we drop you off.” Brigitte started the car again, eyes fixed on the road.

 

“And then what?” Ghost asked, hesitantly.

 

“We don’t care.” Ginger sniggered.

 

Brigitte glanced up at the rearview mirror again, catching Ghost’s eye.

 

“You get on with your life. And you never see us again.” Brigitte replied, slowly.

 

“What if I look for you?” Ghost asked, quickly. “I found you once.”

 

Ginger turned back and snarled.

 

“Resist that urge.” Brigitte caught her eye in the mirror again.

 

Streaks of red cut through the clouds above, as the sun rose higher behind them, and the sirens faded into the distance.

 

…

 

Brigitte jumped slightly, barely realising she’d been nodding off again, when Ginger placed her hand over hers on the wheel.

 

“Feel free to warn me if you’re gonna doze off at the wheel, B.” Ginger smirked, wryly. “I’d like a bit of warning if you’re gonna try’n kill me a third time.”

 

“Tired.” Brigitte rubbed her eyes with her arm.

 

“We could stop.” Ginger suggested. “Dump her off in the middle of nowhere.” She nodded back at Ghost, now asleep in the back.

 

Brigitte glowered at her.

 

“Well, I’d find it funny.” Ginger grinned. “Are we really going to give her that money?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“After everything she’s done? She fucking mental, B. She-”

 

“-has problems. Don’t we all?” Brigitte cut her off. Her eyes strayed to the sleeping shape of Ghost in the back. “She’s still just a girl.” She finished.

 

Brigitte turned back to the road.

 

They’d been driving for a few hours, with no direction or goal in mind. Her mind drifted back to the night before.

 

“I saw mo-” She stopped herself. “Pamela. And Henry, on the news earlier this morning. Talking about us.”

 

“Oh?” Ginger asked, trying not to sound interested.

 

“They still want us back.” Brigitte said, quietly.

 

“Oh.” Ginger replied.

 

They fell silent.

 

“Did…you want to go back?” Ginger asked, eventually, looking at her.

 

Brigitte met her gaze, briefly, before looking back at the road.

 

“We can’t go back.”

 

“I suppose not.” Ginger shrugged.

 

The car fell silent again.

 

Brigitte glanced across at her sister again. She still had her hand clasped over hers. It was…reassuring, after everything else.

 

She had no idea what to do next. Time was, she’d just move along, shack up in another little town and scratch out as much of a life as she could, like always, but…but it was getting harder. Ginger had been right about one thing, there had to be something else, beyond this. She couldn’t keep doing this forever. Sooner or later she’d make a mistake and something like last night would happen again but there’d be no coming back. No last minute solution. No saving Ginger.

 

Or herself.

 

“Something on your mind, B?”

 

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.” She admitted, realising it was half to herself.

 

“Don’t say that,” Ginger chuckled, nervously. “, I’m kinda relying on you.”

 

“I’m serious, we…I can’t keep doing this.” Brigitte hissed, gripping the wheel tighter, staring ahead. “Sooner or later I’m going to fuck up and I’ll wake up one morning with my teeth in someone’s fucking throat, sniffing your fucking ass and trying to wag my fucking tail.”

 

“Kinky.” Ginger smirked, squeezing her hand, lightly.

 

Brigitte tried to glare at her, but Ginger pulled a face and she chuckled despite herself.

 

The next silence was more comfortable.

 

Brigitte felt Ginger watching her, as they drove. She’d open her mouth once in a while like she wanted to say something, then change her mind.

 

“Your turn, Ginger.” Brigitte said, putting her out of her misery. “Spit it out.”

 

“What about…er…the dreams?” Ginger asked, almost embarrassed. “My dreams.”

 

Brigitte was going to put down her idea about those dreams or visions or…whatever again, if she hadn’t had one of her own, barely a day before.

 

“…our dreams.” Brigitte corrected her, in a mumble.

 

“Sorry?” Ginger blinked.

 

“Our dreams.” Brigitte said, louder. “Ours. I…had one too.”

 

“Then…they _are_ real?” Ginger leaned back in her seat.

 

“Or we’re both just fucking nuts.” Brigitte shrugged.

 

“Did you see them? Us? The other…er…Ginger? And Brigitte?”

 

“Yeah.” Brigitte replied, not quite able to believe it herself, still. “I did.”

 

“I want to find them.” Ginger said, watching her carefully.

 

She looked sharply back at her sister.

 

“…what?” She scoffed. “There’s nothing…I mean…even if they were…real…how fucking long ago was it? Where were they? What happened?”

 

“I don’t know.” Ginger shrugged. “But don’t you want to find out?”

 

Brigitte frowned, staring ahead again.

 

She was curious.

 

Were they real? The other sisters? Were they their related, somehow? Family, from way, way back? Was it coincidence, Ginger being bitten and Brigitte taking the curse voluntarily, or…something else?

 

It made her think.

 

“C’mon B, maybe they knew something about…about all this?” She gestured vaguely. “About the curse, about werewolves, about what we are. Don’t you want to know?”

 

“I want us to be safe.” Brigitte replied, carefully. “Away somewhere, together. Is that so much to ask?” She added, as an afterthought.

 

_“…ours was a story of survival; of two sisters bound by blood.”_

The voice, her voice, echoed in her head.

 

_“A bond that would not be broken. That was our promise above all: above men, above God, above Fate.”_

She looked across at Ginger. Ginger looked back at her.

 

_““It was in our blood.”_

Brigitte sighed.

 

“Okay.”

 

Ginger grinned, squeezing her right hand again.

 

Brigitte released the wheel with her hand and squeezed it back.

 

“So, where are we going then?” Brigitte asked.

 

“Oh fuck knows, I was hoping you’d have some idea.” Ginger laughed.

 

“What?” Brigitte glared sharply at Ginger.

 

“You’re the bookworm, B.” Ginger shrugged. “I thought you might be able to…work it out or something, if I told you about the stuff I saw.”

 

“…great.” Brigitte grumbled.

 

“Well, how hard could it be?” Ginger went on. “A fort, some werewolves…”

 

“I don’t think it turned up in any fucking history books in our school, Ginge.”

 

“Well, you’ll find it somewhere, right?” Ginger persevered. “Someone always write this shit down somewhere? Isn’t that how history works?”

 

“Fucking hell.” Brigitte growled, eyes fixed again on the road.

 

Ginger sniggered to herself, at her reaction. She started toying with the radio.

 

_“It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be a-”_

 

“0h fuck that.” Brigitte scowled, switching it off.

 

Ginger pretended to gasp, looking mock-shocked.

 

“Scrooge McFitzgerald.” She smirked. “It’s very nearly-”

 

“Don’t you dare.” Brigitte shot her a dark look.

 

Ginger kept grinning, but didn’t say anything. Brigitte hoped that was the end of it.

 

She was mildly surprised when Ginger leaned over, trailing her lips up from her neck to her cheek in a series of half-kisses, nuzzling her.

 

“Merry Christmas.” Ginger said in a mocking, hushed voice.

 

Brigitte groaned, but leaned into her sister, relishing the contact.

 

“Love you Brigitte.” Ginger whispered, into her ear.

 

Brigitte didn’t say anything at first, only enjoying her sister’s touch.

 

_“Together forever.”_  Multiple voices reverberated the phrase in her head, like a memory, and a dream rolled together. Her voice, and Ginger’s, across the years.

 

“Together forever.” Brigitte echoed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...aaaaaand fade to black, roll credits, Ginger Snaps theme plays...
> 
> And there we have it. A big thanks to all those reading, I hope you enjoyed my fumbling attempts at something like a sequel/conclusion. I thought a lot about how to end it, but I felt this was the best way. Brigitte and Ginger stuck together, bloodshed and madness in their wake, and chasing the prospect of ghost stories and answers way, waaaaay back in their past.
> 
> Maybe one day I'll work on a follow-up. I left enough of a path to take I think, with the connections to Ginger Snaps Back, but for now, the Fitzgeralds probably deserve a break. Merry Christmas, folks.


End file.
